RWBY: A Boy's Reimagining
by thenextgamer
Summary: The Councilmen of Vale allowed the kingdom to be annexed by Atlas. Beacon goes through a massive revision process, turning into a military school and replacing the headmaster with General Ironwood. Blake never left the White Fang. Weiss stayed behind in Atlas with her father. Yang left her family at a young age to go after her mother. But Ross? He'll make a difference. Male!Ruby AU
1. Prologue of the Red

**Just a little original idea in my head that won't go away. Alternative history of the Great War, Beacon turning into a military school run by Ironwood, Ironwood being a douche general, Team RWBY never existed, White Fang being much more organized and powerful, Atlas Government being a jerk, and a whole bunch more stuff that I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with.**

 **Enjoy if you want to.**

* * *

Man, born from dust, was strong, wise, and resourceful. Though born in an unforgiving world, he learned to grit his teeth, and bared through the hardships in the name of survival. With only the resources in his hand, and the knowledge within his mind, he learned to adapt to the ever harsh world… and thrived.

Man learned to control Dust. Man learned to fight back the inevitable darkness of the Grimm. Man learned to cooperate, knowing strength came in numbers.

And when man learned to live, thus came civilization, culture, knowledge. Hope for a better future to live in.

Yet, for all of Man's potential for compassion and understanding, of kindness and morals, so too, came the potential to become a devastating force of destruction, of treachery and deceit, for even the pettiest of reasons.

Riches. Land. Power.

No matter what it was, Man had chosen to die for such goals. There was no doubt about that.

Over eighty years ago, there waged a Great War between the four kingdoms of Remnant. Mantle, Vacuo, Mistral, and Vale.

A war over the kingdoms' individuality. Of self-expression and the destruction of art. A war in which no one could remember which kingdom was fighting for which side.

A misconception. A fabrication. A lie.

A lie to cover up the true reason for why the war started.

A simple meeting between all the kingdom's leaders. Eighty years ago, it all started with just a simple meeting. An argument about a shortage of resources that could have simply been solved within an hour, if they had all just cooperated.

Vacuo, who was selfishly demanding for help. Mantle, who had been indignant and enraged. Mistral, who greedily requested an outrageous price. Vale, the only one willing to listen to reason and compromise, trying so hard to settle the ever growing tension in the room.

No one knew who was the first to have lost his temper and fire the first shot. Whether it was Vacuo for being too impatient when no one gave him help, Mantle for his paranoia over sharing resources he earned just to be given away, or Mistral for his unpredictable nature in general.

Everyone knew it was Vale who died first in that meeting. For trying to protect one of the others? For getting in their way? For simply not taking a side? Who could say, really?

It didn't really matter in the end. The moment the first shot was fired, all hell broke loose.

A fight had started between the three leaders, one born from adrenaline and fear. No one could trust each other anymore, not after witnessing their true nature that day.

Thus they fought. They fought until they had been weakened. They fought until they could retreat back to the safety of their kingdoms.

Then, war was declared.

The Mantle King, who blamed the others for being greedy parasites that wanted to leech off of his kingdom's success, declared war. With the most well-trained soldiers and generals in his ranks, his kingdom was the most militarily-advantaged, and the most well defended.

The Vacuan King, willing to steal and kill out of desperation for the survival of his desert kingdom, declared war. With the eyes of the Faunus on his side, his kingdom was the most subtle, yet also the most bloodthirsty of them all.

The Mistral King, who cared for nothing but his own self-preservation and saw this as a door for unlimited riches, declared war. His kingdom being the most economically thriving, he had no shortage of supplies, whether it be affording more numbers in his army with mercenaries, or the large quantity of the highest-quality weapons.

The anguished son of the Vale King, stricken with grief over his father's death, declared war. Not out of desperation, not out of paranoia, not out of greed. But for revenge. What he lacked in supplies, in subtlety, or in experience, he made up for with a commanding presence, and sheer determined will.

Thousands died. Millions of causality. All for what? For a disagreement? For a lack of understanding? For the sake of wanting more?

Man fought over his own mistakes. Man remembered his actions. Man erased the past in order to cope with his sins. Man forgets.

Thus, the cycle repeated, eighty years later.

Man, born from dust, was weak, blind, and greedy. For in the passage of time, whatever legacy or monument that Man has built will eventually fall and fade away from existence due to their own destructive behavior.

Man, born from dust, will die in ashes. Ashes that will be left behind as time moves on without him.

 _Or more optimistically, man will one day learn from his mistakes as time moves on, as he adapts and evolves to a higher existence._

 _For Man was not a simple creature. No, for he was one that contradicted himself constantly._

 _Time passes, and old leaders are replaced with new ones. New leaders who appreciated the peace that existed before the war, and had done everything they could to put an end to what they realized was a pointless battle. All it took was the right people at the right time._

 _For each selfish and desperate man in this world, there is always a more patient and selfless one to balance it out._

 _For each paranoid and short-tempered, a more calm and understanding one._

 _For each greedy and self-preserving, a more generous and helpful one._

 _For all of Man's potential to become a force of destruction, of treachery and deceit, so too was there potential for compassion and understanding, for kindness and moral. Even for the simplest of reasons._

 _Although even the brightest of flames can fade away quickly, sometimes the smallest flicker of warmth can last for a millennia._

 _Such, was Man._

 **And man! Was Man confusing as fuck, man.**

 **Like, seriously. This was some Yin-Yang shit going on right there.**

 **So, uh, are you guys done? Can we fight to the death now? Kinda been waiting on you two to finish talking about whatever it is that you were talking about. Got my gun out and everything, just didn't want to be rude.**

* * *

A young boy tumbled and rolled as he landed on top of one of the railroad cars of the moving train. He groaned from the impact, rubbing his sore arm, but was otherwise uninjured. The pain would heal quickly from his Aura anyway, so no time to waste. He moved to stand up, one arm raised in order to lessen the force of the rushing wind blowing past his face.

The young boy in question was a rather stout person, reaching up to five foot three in height. If you took a glance at him from afar, you would assume that his favorite color was red. It would be obvious, considering the red and black color scheme of his clothing, and the red tint of his dark hair.

His name was Ross Rose. He was a Huntsman.

Well, in actuality, a Huntsman in training. A rather young one at that. Fifteen years old, two years younger than what could be considered the standard.

It was a rather long story, involving a magazine, a dust shop, some criminals, and the famous Headmaster Ozpin taking notice of his prowess. But I'm sure you've heard of that plenty of times already. Even though this was a slight _variation_ to that story, I won't bore you with that part of the exposition.

That had been months ago, though. So much had changed since then, much to Ross's dismay.

For reasons that were beyond him, the council of Vale's Kingdom had unanimously decided to give complete control over to Atlas. Because of that decision, so many things had changed. Laws were rewritten. Atlas military robots and soldiers roamed the streets everyday with their judging eyes, practically putting the entire kingdom under martial law. People and families were forced to relocate to other parts of the kingdom due to huge reconstruction work imposed by the Atlas government. Any Faunus being seen even slightly aggressive were arrested and moved to jails built specifically for Faunus only, to counter the White Fang movement. Dust shops and merchants were forced to shut down their stores in order to make room for more factories and suppliers from the branded Schnee Dust Corporation.

It was a giant mess, all of it. Vale had become so drastically different, it was a wonder why they bothered to even keep the name.

An entire kingdom that had been around for centuries, suddenly allowed itself to be gobbled up by another one simply because it was slightly more powerful. He could hardly believe it.

There was an even more drastic change that came with the 'Atlas Annexation,' which was a nickname that people mostly used when referring to the event. A drastic change that directly affected him.

Beacon Academy was ordered by the new government to undergo a huge revision process, essentially changing the education system into something more similar to military drill training, and replacing most of the Beacon staff with Atlas Military personnel. Even Headmaster Ozpin himself was replaced by a man known as General James Ironwood.

Ross didn't like this change. Not one bit. Beacon basically transformed itself into a military school, right under his nose.

The General wasn't like Ozpin. Too strict and arrogant for Ross's taste. Ross originally guessed that the General was the type of guy who would only tolerate complete subordination and expect nothing less, lest he get a temper.

Judging from how he behaved towards students that always questioned him, and to Ross in particular, Ross seemed to have hit the money right on the nose.

Ross wished things would go back to the way it once was. But what could he do about it? He certainly couldn't just quit Beacon, or go against the change. It would ruin his shot at becoming a fully-fledged licensed Huntsman, something that he had always dreamed of becoming. It wasn't like he even had the money to move and transfer to another Hunter Academy either, so this was his only choice.

He'd have to grit his teeth and bare with it, it seemed. Just long enough until he graduated and finally had enough influence to change things and take matters into his own hands.

Something on his belt began vibrating, pulling him out of his thoughts.

He sighed before holding a finger up to his ear and answering the call. "Freshman Rose." He did his best to sound as emotionless and professional as possible.

~"General Ironwood. Report, Freshman."~ The rough voice of the headmaster/teacher/"superior officer"/guy that always told him what to do spoke on the other end.

"I'm on the commandeered train. It was pretty easy despite the speed that it was going. I landed on top of one of the railroad cars by jumping off a high advantage point, and I don't think my presence has been detected by the enemy yet."

~"Good. I trust you still remember your orders."~ The general stated, making it clear that it wasn't a question.

 _I'm not a damn amnesiac, what the hell do you think, douchebag?_ Ross furrowed his eyebrows but didn't reveal his agitation over the call.

"Affirmative. Train's being taken over by the terrorist group, White Fang. My mission objective is to sneak aboard the train, secure any valuables I can scavenge by pushing it out of the train for your men to come collect, protect any civilians on board, and take down any and all White Fang members in my way."

~"Remember Freshman, this is not only a mission, but a test. I will be evaluating your every move and action from up here. For the sake of your continued education, I better like what I see."~

Ross's eye twitched in annoyance, stopping himself from speaking out of turn before he got punished again. After all, it was his big mouth that got him into this situation in the first place. "Right, sure."

~"What was that, Freshman?"~ The general asked with a cutting edge in his tone.

Ross facepalmed and slowly dragged his hand down, trying not to groan out loud.

"Roger sir, I read you loud and clear." He rephrased with clenched teeth.

~"Hmph. General Ironwood, out."~

As Ross heard the transmission end, he quietly mumbled to himself, "Fucking Irondouche with that stick-up-his-ass-attitude." He then shook his head and focused his attention to the mission.

He steadily walked over to the side of the railroad car and hopped down to the balcony. Relieved that rushing wind wasn't blowing past his face anymore, he stepped inside the railroad car.

Inside revealed the car to be one of the supply cars that held a multitude of crates and shipping boxes, all organized neatly.

Or at least, had been organized neatly. From the looks of it, the whole car appeared to have been ransacked. Boxes were ripped, crates were torn apart, yet interestingly enough, nothing looked like it had been stolen. It was like the culprits were trying to look for something specific instead of stealing everything that wasn't nailed to the floor.

Remembering one of his objectives, Ross moved to push the side-doors of the car open, and prepared himself to push all of the luggage outside for the Atlas personnel to come by and pick up later.

As he put his hands on the closest crate he saw, he stopped himself when he saw the words on the side.

 **Fragile, please handle with care.**

 _Hm…_

He looked to the outside, then back to the opened crate filled with weird metal parts. Then he looked outside, and then back to the crate again.

What to do, what to do…

 _Well, he did say push out anything I can scavenge. Irondouche will just have to deal with how it landed._

With that in mind, he pushed the entire crate out of the car with reckless abandon. Then he proceeded to repeat the process again for literally everything else in the car.

A symphony of crushed glass and damaged cargo filled the air as he did so. It didn't take long to clear house.

 _Job well done._ He thought to himself cheerfully, patting his hands down after such hard work. _One down, probably a shit ton more to go._

Walking up to the door leading to the next car, Ross opened it up and stepped outside once more. Jumping over the connectors of the train, Ross took a minute to look at his surroundings.

 _Gee, this train sure is moving fast. Irondouche said something about how this train was heading towards some district in Vert, right? Since he's already prepared some reinforcement over there, it's probably safe to assume that these guys will hightail it out of here before the train reaches it's destination. If that's the case, what were they trying to do on this train anyway? This is getting really suspicious._

Answers would have to come later, he supposed. Moving over to the door of the next car, he opened it up-

He came face to face with a masked man in a dark hoodie, who was just about to open the door for himself.

Ross widened his eyes.

The man with the Grimm mask froze in shock.

They both silently stared at each other, not exactly sure how to proceed.

…

"INTRUDEEEEER-"

Ross pulled a red case out from his belt as it transformed into a red sniper rifle. In a blink of an eye, Ross pulled the trigger and performed a headshot at point blank range to the White Fang member, instantly knocking him unconscious. Or probably dead, if he wasn't an Aura-user. Ross really hoped he was an Aura-user.

While it was great that he managed to surprise and take out one of the White Fang members, he was sure that it'd be a much harder time to do the same for the rest of them now. If they didn't hear the dude's alerted scream, then they would surely hear the noise of the gunshot from his high caliber sniper rifle.

Ross sighed.

 _Oh well, never liked stealth anyway._

He dramatically pulled his hood up, and spun around with the rifle in his hands as it morphed into a giant oversized red scythe that looked way too large for him to wield.

The door from the other side of the car was kicked down, and shots fired from a machine gun rang out.

But as the men in Grimm masks rushed into the car hoping to find a dead body of someone unfamiliar, they only looked around in confusion as the only things they found were the unconscious body of their brother, and a few rose petals being gusted by the wind.

The White Fang members kept their guard up though, silently signaling each other to look around and find anything suspicious. With assault rifles raised, three of the members walked around the car while two took positions to guard each of the doors.

One of them crouched down to put a finger on their unconscious brother's neck to find a pulse. After a few seconds, he sighed in relief and gave a thumbs up to the others, signaling that he was fine.

Another one of the White Fang took cover to the side of a window, slowly opening it up, before hastily leaning out with his gun and scouring the area. He looked above him, beneath him, and side to side of the car. Nothing but the wind and the moving scenery outside.

The masked man shook his head, turning around to check the other side.

Then he got a boot to the head and his face collided with the floor.

"BOOM, IN THE WINDOW I GO!"

The sudden joyous exclamation caught them all by surprise. On instinct, they reared their positions towards the disturbance and fired away at the red object of interest.

That red object of interest though, it was quick. Very quick.

With practiced ease, Ross ducked as he used his scythe to scoop up the guy he just kicked off the floor and flung him at the farthest gunman, the flung guy yelping in midair. Then, like a blur, Ross seemingly phased out of existence, leaving a trail of rose petals behind where he originally was.

The gunman at the far end grunted as his brother collided into him, forcing him to drop his gun as they both fell down.

Everyone else just looked around with caution, trying to find the threat that lurked beneath their noses.

As the two Faunus steadily got back up, the presumably higher ranked out of all of them pulled out a radio. "This is Turtle Blue, alert alert, there is a Hunter onboard the train! I repeat, there is a Hunt- GAHK!"

He was interrupted when he felt Ross's scythe yank him back by the throat as rose petals caressed his cheeks.

"Sorry, I gotta interrupt this call to bring you important news. You gon' get wrecked, babeh!" Ross commented in a cheeky manner, before using his scythe to fling the guy over his shoulder, aimed right towards the two White Fang members that had just gotten back up. "Hat trick!"

As those three collided, the other two members immediately aimed their sights right at Ross and fired.

Ross effortlessly dodged the bullets as he used his semblance, more and more rose petals slowly filling the room in the car.

He fired a round, launching himself towards one of the gunmen and slamming the blunt end of his scythe down on the man's head, before shooting another round and sliding across the floor, swinging his scythe in an uppercut to the next guy, effectively knocking both of them out.

That only left the last three, still trying to untangle themselves from one another to get off the floor.

Calmly walking up to the pile of disgruntled criminals, Ross shifted his weapon into rifle mode and shot all three of them in the head, promptly rendering them all unconscious.

"Phew," Ross wiped away some nonexistent sweat off of his brow, "That was fun."

The mission wasn't over yet, though.

Ross moved on to the next car, with slightly higher spirits than before.

* * *

The tied up train conductor grunted as his face was violently kicked back. The back of his head collided against the wall behind him, disorienting him and possibly garnering a concussion.

That didn't stop the man in front of him from grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and bringing the train conductor up to his eye level.

He did his best not to flinch as he was forced to look into the eye-slits of the man's white mask.

"Tell me where you hid it." The red-haired bull Faunus asked in a manner that was so eerily calm, the conductor couldn't help but shiver.

"I-I don't know what you w-want." He stuttered, before gulping down some air to steel his nerves. "But even if I did, I wouldn't say a damn thing anyway!"

The conductor knew he wasn't going to live past this anyway. Why bother giving these terrorists his cooperation or satisfaction?

This answer apparently did not satisfy the bull Faunus, if the way he smashed the conductor's head against the wall said anything about it.

"Adam," the smooth voice of a girl with cat ears from behind the bull Faunus spoke up, "If you keep doing that, you'll just knock him out."

Adam huffed in contempt, "Feh, humans are resilient and stubborn bastards. Besides, I'm not even putting in any effort. He can take it."

The Faunus unceremoniously dropped the conductor back to the floor, allowing him a few moments to cough up the blood welling in his mouth.

 _Pitiful and disgusting, these creatures._ Adam thought to himself, _How any of them could think themselves superior to the Faunus will be a mystery that I'll never understand or figure out._

As the man coughed up the last drop of blood and desperately gasped for air, Adam interrupted his relief by stomping his foot on top of the train conductor's stomach. "You're starting to get on my nerves, human. Make it easier on yourself, and tell me what you know."

"I said that I don't know anything!" The man grunted out in agony, yet still showed defiance in his words, "So you might as well get it through your thick skull and kill me already, you piece of shit!"

The train conductor had decided that might as well be as good as any time to make peace with himself now. It might make the prospect of death seem appealing, or at the very least, bearable.

But while he was not afraid for his life, his only regret was that he wasn't strong enough to prevent the White Fang terrorist from killing the rest of the people on this train.

He looked behind the two Faunus to stare sympathetically at the others who were also tied up in this room with him.

The passengers, the attendants, the guards. Their eyes all looked so scared. He only wished that they wouldn't end up in the same fate as him. But he knew it was unlikely for that to happen.

The red-haired bull sighed in annoyance, "So we're doing this the hard way then."

Adam proceeded to walk up to the side of the wall, before putting a hand over his chokuto sword and bending over to a concentrated stance.

In a flash, a rectangular hole appeared on the side of the wall, startling everyone as the wind rushed inside the car.

He reached over to grab the train conductor by his hair, and pulled him so that at least half of his body was tilting outside.

Despite trying to make peace with himself and preparing for his death, he was not expecting this to happen. So you might forgive him as he started screaming in terror and wriggling to pull himself back in the car, as any sane person would have a similar reaction when they find their face was literally inches away from turning into pure smush up against the moving railroad tracks.

"I will not ask again. Tell me where the blueprints for the X70 Exosuits are. I know this train is carrying them somewhere. If I don't get an answer soon, I _will_ make you suffer for it."

"Adam!" The same girl who spoke up earlier screamed in surprise, "Don't you think that you're going a bit too far with this?!"

"Blake, focus on your job and pay attention to the passengers." He commanded coldly, "I will deal with this how I see fit."

The girl, Blake, could only look at him with shock and disappointment before hesitantly looking away to keep watch over their prisoners.

Satisfied that he wouldn't be interrupted from his interrogation again, he looked back to the train conductor dangling from his hands, only to pause when he heard the man chuckling.

"So that's what you've been looking for this entire time? The blueprints?" He asked, before starting to laugh even louder.

Adam angrily pulled the man's hair back so that his ears could reach near the bull Faunus' mouth. "Talk. Now." He demanded.

"Sorry to disappoint you," The conductor apologized in a manner that showed how obvious it was that he wasn't feeling sorry at all, "But you must have the most shittiest timing. One of the higher-ups told me how an employer of theirs got all paranoid and decided to reschedule transport of the blueprints at the very last moment. It's not on the train anymore, kiddo. I don't know where it is, and I doubt you'll be able to find it again anytime soon."

With that said and done with, the train conductor started laughing ferociously again, feeling quite satisfied knowing that the White Fang's plan had been destined to fail before it even began, all by sheer luck.

Adam, you could say, was pissed.

Before he was able to give in to his inner primal urges and push the man into the railroad tracks though, he forced himself to stop when he heard his communicator flicker on.

~"This is Turtle Blue, alert alert, there is a Hunter onboard the train! I repeat, there is a Hunt- GAHK!"~

~"Sorry, I gotta interrupt this call to bring you important news. You gon' get wrecked, babeh!"~

The communicator abruptly ended in static.

He looked up to his partner to see the worried look on her face. He also found himself displeased at how hopeful their prisoners looked when they heard news of a Hunter arriving aboard the train.

"Looks like today just isn't your day." The train conductor smugly taunted him, despite his position. "The Hunter will rescue us all and put you all in a cage where you belong. I hope you rot in your jail cell like the scum you are."

Adam gave a feral growl that immediately made the train conductor shut up out of fear.

"Blake. Go deal with the Hunter." He seethed, glaring in contempt at the man he held in his fingers.

"But what about-"

"I can handle things from up here, just _GO ALREADY!_ " He lashed out at her, any composure he had left being burnt away from the sheer fire of his rage.

Blake stepped back for a moment, startled at his tone. But she knew better than to argue with him, so she did as he commanded, sprinting to the door. Confident that she'd be able to deal with the nuisance onboard, Adam gave his full attention back to the train conductor.

"As for you…" His hands clenched tighter as he held on to the tied up man, inches away from making him suffer.

"I've made peace with myself already, so I don't care anymore. Just hurry up and do your worst." The train conductor glared back at him.

"With pleasure."

To the horror of everyone else in the car with them, Adam plunged the train conductor's face down into the tracks.

Although he didn't show it on his face, he savoured every last bit of the human's muffled screams as splatters of blood got on his coat.

* * *

Blake Belladonna did not like this. No, not one bit.

This was wrong on so many levels, in her eyes.

This was suppose to be a simple retrieval mission. A train was going to be transporting an item of high value, that was supposedly something so dangerous in the hands of humans that it could potentially wipe out every single cell of the White Fang. A weapon so powerful, it could change the very nature of war itself.

Blake was originally skeptical at the idea, but the way that Adam had went on and on about it, something about powerful exosuits that could turn anyone into a walking artillery tank. To her, it sounded like a concept from a sci-fi story at most, but she didn't really want to argue over the credibility of it with Adam.

They were suppose to sneak on board the train, grab the blueprints, and then once they brought it back to base, they would safely destroy it so that nobody could ever hope to use it.

This plan had so many holes in it that it was embarrassing how much there was a lack of care and thought put into it. For one, they brought along way too many Faunus for it to even be considered a stealth mission anymore. Two, with the way they _subtly_ got onboard the train, and that was said with sarcastic undertones mind you, it was a wonder how it was just only NOW that someone had been sent to deal with the situation.

Last of all, why burn the blueprints? What would be the point of it? Surely, if the blueprints were as important as Adam had made them out to be, then that meant whoever had printed out the schematics in the first place had thought of printing more copies just in case one ever got lost or destroyed, right? Or at least saved and backed up the data on a Dust Drive somewhere! Did anyone think this through at all?!

But if it had just been only these problems that had arisen, then Blake wouldn't have minded as much as she did now.

No, the worst part of this was that nobody told her that this train was holding _passengers._ Innocent civilians that didn't even want to be caught up in this entire mess in the first place.

This was not supposed to happen. They weren't supposed to round up and tie up innocent people, and stash them away to the front cars. They weren't supposed to be violently interrogating the train conductor. They weren't supposed to be so loud and make it so obvious to the world that the White Fang were currently hijacking a train from nowhere, and they certainly weren't supposed to kill anyone during this mission!

But it was like Adam didn't even care! The moment he started having trouble finding the blueprints, it was like he just gave up on subtlety on a whim and went full crime-boss on them all instead of saving it as a last resort!

This was wrong. This was so wrong.

But she had no choice other than to comply. This was all in the name of the White Fang after all. This was all in the name of justice, of equality, of putting an end to Faunus suffering and human bigotry.

Even if it did seem like things were getting out of control, she just had to trust that Adam knew what he was doing. He would never steer the White Fang wrong, and he had never done so before.

At least, that was what she told herself in her head.

But in her heart, she couldn't help but wonder when it all went so wrong… when it all changed to something that she couldn't even recognize anymore…

She was brought out of her musings when she saw a brother of her group flying towards her.

She side-stepped at the last moment, letting her brother pass by without interruption, watching him as he bounced and rolled off the floor and crashed into a wall. He groaned in pain, before leaving the conscious world and entering dreamland.

Blake rushed to position herself in cover, leaning herself against the wall next to the car door.

She stayed patient, listening in on the fighting that ensued on the neighboring car over.

She could hear clashing metal. Some gunshots rang out.

 _Sounds like… high caliber rounds? Was this Hunter a close-range melee-rifle hybrid user?_

"Woo! Barely even breaking a sweat!" An unfamiliar voice cheered enthusiastically as the noise of the fighting went on.

 _Wait… that sounded like… a kid?_

Out of sheer curiosity, Blake risked a peek as she slightly tilted her head just enough to see who the intruder was.

A young boy, short in height, wearing a red leather jacket with a hood and matching pants, and the most interesting detail of all, wielding a giant oversized scythe with complete ease and dexterity.

She watched, mesmerized by how such a small child could spin around a scythe so big for his size, at such a speed that she couldn't even fathom.

 _This is definitely unorthodox._ She thought to herself, observing as the boy shot a round from behind him, both to shoot at a White Fang brother while also using the recoil to do a massive cleave attack at two more in front of him. All of them went down so easily.

He had cleared an entire wave of her White Fang brothers.

The boy gave a confident smirk as he looked around the fruits of his labor. The entire floor of the car was covered to the brim with the unconscious bodies of her brothers, and oddly enough, rose petals as well. He spun his scythe around in one hand before bringing it up to hang above his shoulders, casually moving forwards like it was just a walk in the park.

Blake moved back into cover before he could notice her head sticking out.

In her mind was a rush of thoughts and information.

He definitely had the skills of a Hunter, but with him looking so young, it would be safe to assume that he was actually just a hunter-in-training. Although, even that thought was still worrying enough. Most hunters-in-training were about near her age, teenagers just months away from reaching adulthood. Yet he looked like he could be around thirteen or fourteen years old! How could someone so young be so skilled?

There was also that exotic weapon of his. Never before had Blake ever come across a proficient scythe user, neither did she ever expect to see one in her lifetime. Yet there was one right in the next car over, and he was slowly walking over to the car where she was hiding.

She would have to take him out by surprise. There were too many anomalies in this situation to think of a proper strategy in order to fight him one on one. He would be unpredictable to her simply because she never fought anyone like him before. A sneak attack would be the only way. Hopefully it would be quick and clean. Maybe his young age meant he was skilled, but inexperienced? She could work with inexperience. Inexperience meant he would make mistakes.

She held her breath as she heard his footsteps starting to get nearer to her position. She silently pulled out Gambol Shroud and held it in front of her, preparing for anything.

She saw a small gust of red rose petals flow into the car, a few even caressing her face for a bit. She found this a bit strange, as she didn't remember this train holding any cargo for roses or flowers of any type.

 _Where did all these petals come from?_

"Whaddya sneaking around for?"

The sudden voice behind her startled her, her adrenaline pumping as she instinctively spun around to cleave Gambol Shroud into whatever was behind her.

She saw a brief glimpse of that boy smiling at her before he dissipated into rose petals right before her weapon made contact, indenting itself into the wall of the railroad car instead.

She's been compromised!

She leaped back from her position and unsheathed her weapon into two, holding both her katana and sheath in each hand, cautiously looking around for the intruder.

When she heard the sound of a guncock from behind her, she immediately turned around to deflect the shot aimed at her head with her swords. Two more shots followed in series, which she was also able to deflect with moderate difficulty.

The boy, seeing how his long range attacks were being easily deflected, aimed his scythe behind him and fired another shot, this time using the recoil to launch himself forward at her.

He made to sweep her off of her feet, then slam down his scythe while she was still in mid-air. To his surprise however, when he brought the scythe down, she suddenly disappeared from sight the moment his scythe collided with her abdomen.

Blake had dashed away from the attack while using her semblance to leave behind a shadow copy of herself to take the blows for her. Now in ripe position behind the boy, she took the opportunity to strike at him while his guard was down.

But similar to how he reacted when Blake escaped his sights, she also was surprised when the boy dissipated into rose petals, again right before she could hit him. The rose petals were blown towards her face, covering her eyes and effectively disorienting her before she felt something hard hit her from behind, knocking her forward and sending her tumbling face-first to the floor.

She recovered quickly, though. With finesse, she pushed herself to roll forward into a crouch, regaining her balance and facing towards the intruder as she went into her defensive stance.

The boy in front of her started studying her with wary eyes, as he too kept his guard up in his own battle stance.

"Huh. Well, you're different." He spoke in a casual tone, "No mask, no hoodie. Really unique and cool looking weapon. Pretty quick, too."

Blake stayed silent in response, as she saw no point in talking during a fight.

The boy slowly started strafing to the side, so Blake chose to mimic his movements. They ended up circling each other as they both observed one another.

"That trick you did, with the disappearing act. Was that your semblance?" He decided to ask.

She said nothing back.

"That was pretty cool. Took me a bit off guard. It was like a weird illusion thing. I can do something similar to that, although the way I do it is probably a lot more different than how you do it."

She furrowed her eyebrows, wondering where he was going with this. Was he trying to stall her? Coming up with a plan in his head?

"Do you happen to have hunter-training? I mean, I only asked because you're the only one around here I fought with that's actually lasted longer than a half a minute, so… yeah."

She took a quick glance around to see if maybe he had a team that was backing him up, carefully looking to her sides, expecting someone to sneak up on her.

"So, are you like, the silent type or something? I mean, I know we're fighting and all, but that doesn't mean we can't get to know each other in the process. Here, let me start it off to break the ice. My name is Ross Rose."

After a moment, she safely concluded that the boy, Ross Rose, was indeed alone by himself.

 _How skilled was this kid if he was trusted to go on a one-man mission against a group of the White Fang?_

For whatever reason compelled her to do it, maybe it was the awkward tension, or maybe she just wanted to humor him, she decided to give him her first name. "Blake."

"Oh, so you _can_ talk then?" Ross smirked before smiling appreciatively, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Blake."

She quirked an eyebrow at his respectful attitude, "Under different circumstances, I'd say that the pleasure was mine. But considering where we stand, you can forgive me if I don't exactly feel too friendly at the moment."

"Eh, it's cool." He shrugged indifferently, "Normally, I'm a bit socially awkward around girls. This is actually one of the first times in my life I'm not being reduced to a stuttering nervous wreck while talking to a girl I've never met before, so this is pretty weird for me too. But hey, I don't mind."

She gave a neutral hum, having no clue on how to respond to something like that.

Despite the casual air that Ross was trying to set, neither of them dropped their guard as they kept circling each other.

She noticed how his eyes would occasionally glance below her, sometimes at her legs or shoulders.

At first, she thought he was… settling his _male gaze_ across her body. But that thought was quickly discarded when she saw the calm and calculated look in his eyes.

He was searching for a weak spot.

She narrowed her eyes, carefully shifting her stance into something more guarded.

"So what's a person like you doing with a terrorist group? You look pretty young, so you still have a life ahead of you. You also seem like a good person with a stable head on her shoulder, so why associate with criminals?"

"Isn't this the first time we've met? You haven't gotten to know me well enough to make an assumption like that."

"Probably." He tilted his head a bit, before resuming, "But I'm pretty confident that I'm right about you being a good person. I'm a pretty good judge of character." He frowned right when he said that, "O-or at least, I'd like to think so. Or maybe I'm just being optimistic, it doesn't really matter."

Shrugging, he moved on, "Point is that I'd like to believe that you're good person. Makes me remember that everyone I come across is a human being."

Blake blinked.

Ross shook his head and backtracked, "I mean Faunus. Girl- Whatever. You're a living breathing person with thoughts and personality to me, for a lack of a better term."

 _This has to a be a trick._ She deadpanned to herself. _He's trying to get my guard down and strike when the moment's right._

Ross gave a frustrated sigh, although it didn't seem to be aimed towards her. "Look, what I'm trying to say is that I know you're not an inherently evil person. You probably think that doing this is for a good cause, and I get that." He explained, "But this isn't the way to do it. I don't know what it is you're doing or how you think it's going to help out with the White Fang, but I do know that you're not exactly helping out the Faunus in the eyes of society. Like, how do you think people will react when they see you do something like this? 'Oh wow, the White Fang sure are promoting a respectful image of the Faunus as they commit robberies and blow things up?'"

"What would _you_ know about us anyway?" Blake found herself growling in defence. She didn't mean to grow a temper, but she didn't want to hear a naive little kid criticize her group as if he knew what was best. "You're not even a Faunus. I don't see why I should listen to you."

"No, I'm not a Faunus." Ross's face shifted to a more neutral expression, almost looking like he was tired. "But I do know what it's like to be abused and bullied by others simply because you were different somehow. I won't pretend to know what it's like to be lonely because of the abuse, since I was lucky enough to have a family member to take care of me, and a couple of friends who had my back." Ross glanced away slightly, avoiding eye contact. "But I know what the depression feels like. The anxiety of feeling like maybe you didn't belong on this world. The despair of how cruel the people who hate you could be. The anger at how life just seems so unfair at times. Sometimes you just want to give in to those negative emotions, and lash out at the people hurting you so that you could make them feel the same pain that they made you feel."

Blake gripped onto her swords tighter, realizing that his words were actually starting to get to her. She could understand why, though. She could relate to his feelings.

But that didn't mean that he actually understood her, or anything that the White Fang did. His experiences with bullies and depression were way too different from the suffering and mistreatment of Faunus everywhere to be anywhere near comparable. So this whole spiel of his felt nothing more than condescending to her ears, even if he didn't mean to make it sound so.

He closed his eyes and shook his head clear, before resuming his train of thought, "But I can tell you from experience that doing that never works out in the end, no matter how satisfying it could feel during the moment. All it does is validate their opinions and make them feel justified for acting the way they are towards you, and it ends up encouraging them even more to keep up the hatred. All these acts of violence, these crimes, they aren't the solution! All you're doing is just making the Faunus look even worse in society!"

"Then what the hell do you propose we should do, if you understand us so much?!" What gave him the right to say that the White Fang wasn't helping the Faunus? What gave him the god damn right to say that they were only hurting the Faunus with their actions, when they risked their lives everyday just to make life easier to breathe for Faunus like her to not have to worry about being a victim of racism whenever they all so much as walk out in the streets?!

" **Maybe literally anything else that doesn't involve hurting or killing other people!"**

She was taken back by his abrupt anger. That sentence cut deeper into her than any blade could ever hope to reach. She paused, thinking back on the actions of her organization. Really thought back, far far back.

The White Fang started out as a peaceful protest group, didn't it?

But when nobody ever listened to them, they started taking action with their own hands. It started out noble and small at first. Stealing food to feed the hungry, medicine to take care of sick and injured Faunus when no one else would.

When had they started throwing rocks at stores? When had they started burning down buildings and homes? When had they started bombing factories and workplaces?

When did it all go so wrong?

"Please, Blake." Ross pleaded with her. He even went so far as to remove his guard, as he stood up straight and lowered his weapon. "We don't have to fight. You can end this right now if you just put down your weapons and give up. There's absolutely no reason to make this situation any worse than it has to be. I promise you, if you come quietly, I'll do my best to convince my superiors to take it easy on you. Maybe even try to find a way to get you to reintegrate with a normal life, if that's something you want."

She thought back to all the pain and misery she caused. She thought back to all the people she had hurt. She thought back to all the excuses she had to tell herself just to be able to sleep comfortably at night.

She thought what her life would be like if she could just start over.

She thought about how Adam would react. She thought about how Adam would yell at her, asking why she would ever listen to a human and his lies. She thought about what life would be like if she was branded as a traitor to her organization. She thought about what life would be like, constantly running away in fear, never being able to settle down in one spot without living with the paranoia of getting stabbed in the throat by one of her own brothers. She thought about how vulnerable Ross was at the moment. She thought about how easy it could be to just take him down right now, and he wouldn't be able to do a thing to stop her or the rest of the White Fang.

Just wait for him to be distracted or focus on something else. A moment of weakness, him losing his attention to her, just anything to happen for her to take advantage of.

Ross sighed, before looking away as he smiled. "You know Blake, I happen to have a friend that's-"

 _Now._

With that, she dashed towards him with her weapons poised.

Unfortunately for her, Ross had manage to raise his scythe up just in time to block the attack. He looked up at her with a shocked expression as the blades of their weapons clashed against each other.

She tried her best to not let the guilt get to her.

"What the shit, Blake?!" He cried out indignantly, "And we were having such a nice heart-to-heart talk with each other too! I mean, I was pouring out my inner demons to you, dammit!"

"Never drop your defence in a fight. Don't forget, we're still enemies." She reminded him with a lack of emotion.

"Was really hoping I could talk you down from this. Guess that's just not an option then." He sighed, clearly downhearted that he wasn't able to convince her to surrender.

Blake was kicked back, the giant scythe spinning around to swipe upwards at her. She sliced down with her katana, parrying the attack before spinning around to use the momentum as she brought both her hands together to attack him with a spinning double sword swipe.

He backflipped away, spinning his scythe around with practiced finesse. "I was genuinely starting to like you, you know. I thought we could have been friends after this, even if the situation we're in did kinda make that seem a bit too improbable to ever happen."

 _Maybe in another life. I'm sorry that it wasn't this one._

As much as she wanted to respond differently to that, she instead shifted her katana into a pistol and started unloading her magazine into him.

Red rose petals appeared from nowhere as Ross spun his scythe around in front of him, deflecting all of her shots.

Just as she ran out of bullets though, Ross disappeared and he left behind a familiar trail of rose petals that were blown in her direction.

Were the petals a hint that showed the direction he went?

If that was true, then that meant he was right behind her again.

Blake turned around as she ducked, avoiding a horizontal sweep from his scythe. She jabbed an elbow at his gut as counter-attack, and then performed a spinning back kick to his face.

He flew back a few feet, only to cartwheel across the other side of the car and stand upright again.

She zipped forward, taking the more aggressive approach as she continued to attack him relentlessly.

But he showed that perhaps he might be too fast for her to handle.

Every slice of her sword that she pulled, he was able to block and strike back with his own. Even when using her Shadow semblance, he somehow managed to adapt to her and reacted accordingly without falter.

It also didn't help that she'd also underestimated him. Maybe it was due to how he talked and behaved earlier that she now had this personal image of him as someone noble, who fought fair and with honor.

So she definitely did not expect him to poke her in the eyes to blind her.

She yelped, covering her eyes in one arm and swinging aimlessly with her sheath with the other.

She felt her head get bashed on the side while she was distracted, causing her to flip to the side and bump into the wall. Leaning on it for support, she opened her eyes to glare at him once her aura stopped most of the pain. "That was dirty and underhanded."

"Says the girl who literally tried to stab me without warning the moment I showed an ounce of trust and pacifism? Mm yeah, your words don't exactly mean a lot right now." He chuckled.

The train abruptly lurched forward, causing the both of them to lose stable footing and pause in their fight.

She looked outside the window to notice how the train seemed to be picking up speed.

Why were they picking up speed? What was Adam doing up there?

She shook her head, refocusing on the more important matter at the moment, her fight.

She saw him as he looked around worriedly, "That does not sound good. Is the train actually going faster-"

She didn't let the opportunity go to waste as she moved to stab him again.

Twice in a row, he blocked her. Damn it.

"See?! You just did it again! Why is doing this okay, but me poking your eyes out is apparently unjustified?!" He asked, glaring back at her.

She didn't reply, keeping up with her attacks on him. He responded in kind, dishing out his own.

The battle ensued again, and it dragged on for much longer than either of them wanted it to.

They were both rather evenly skilled, she realized. They matched each other's movement equally, neither overpowering the other. Every step she made, he was one step ahead of her, and she was one ahead of him.

In any other situation, she probably would have been impressed with how skillful a young boy like him was with his scythe. Maybe even honestly terrified at the idea of ever having to fight him.

But right now, she just wanted this fight to end already.

Ross apparently shared her sentiment.

"This is getting ridiculous." He said while parrying her katana away, "As much fun as this has been, I'm sort of on a time limit right now, and I need to find out why this train is suddenly going faster before I find out something's gone wrong and I end up dealing with it myself."

 _Huh. Besides the part about this being fun, basically my thoughts word for word._ She mildly commented to herself.

Ross flipped his scythe around and took the moment to shoot her in the gut, knocking her away from him.

She groaned, aching from the pain before her Aura finally stopped it. She realized that it was taking longer and longer for each pain she felt to go away. That could only mean one thing...

She was almost out of Aura.

She needed to find a way to end this quickly. But what? What could she do that she hasn't already tried?

Blake paused in her thoughts when she looked towards Ross, rubbing his eyes as he started breathing heavily for some reason. As if he was… concentrating on something.

 _I have a bad feeling about this..._

"Alright…" He husked, wiping his hand down his face before settling back into his stance. He narrowed his eyes at her, his stare like piercing daggers in her skin. " _Let's get dangerous_."

She never really paid attention to this before, but when she looked at him now, she noticed how his irises were the color of silver. For some odd reason, knowing this now made her worry. Like there was a sudden shroud of doubt that clouded her mind.

His eyes… they were unsettling to look at.

Ross spun his weapon around behind him with one hand steadily enough, as though testing out the weight of the scythe. Gradually though, it began picking up speed, spinning faster and faster until rose petals started to appear again.

What was he doing? Was he charging up an attack?

 _I can't let him have the opportunity!_

In a panicked motion, she kicked herself towards him and poised her weapon to strike. But just in case this was a trap of some sort, she summoned another one of her Shadow clones to blink in front of him as she subtly dashed around from behind, letting her clone perform a feint.

When the clone brought it's weapon down though, he didn't even flinch. He allowed the clone to hit him harmlessly, and watched as it vanished from existence.

That should have set off warning alarms inside her head, but in her panicked and adrenaline-filled state, she went ahead and tried to hit him anyway.

He dissipated into a pile of rose petals before she could land a hit.

In hindsight, she supposed she should have seen that coming considering how well _that_ had worked out from the many other times she tried it on him.

But she was at least able to stop him from doing whatever it was he was doing, so it wasn't in vain. Besides, she already learned how to tell where he would be from the direction of where the rose petals flew. She just needed to look at them to predict where he'd strike next, and react properly.

So imagine her startled expression when the rose petals decided to scatter throughout the room instead.

That never happened before! What changed?!

She shuffled about in the train car, turning back and forth in fear of the rose petals circling around her, unable to locate the boy throughout it all. She thought she saw something move in the corner of her eye, but turned only to find nothing but more rose petals.

She brought her swords up to shield an attack she thought was coming when she saw an image of him flicker briefly within the petals. But the attack never came, only more rose petals caressing against her.

Pain struck her shoulder suddenly, and she was able to catch a brief glimpse of him dashing by before disappearing into his wall of petals.

Before she realized it, she found herself trapped inside the center of a red tornado, thousands of small red rose petals covering her line of sight from outside. She spun around, trying to look for a means of exit, and only grew more fearful as she found none. It was dizzying, watching the walls of red moving in circular motion around her.

"What kind of semblance is this?!" She yelled in disbelief.

" _Believe it or not, it's just Speed._ " His voice bounced around, seemingly coming from every direction. It was of absolutely no help towards hinting where his true location might be.

Or was he even standing in one spot throughout this madness?

Was he actually running circles around her so fast that she wasn't able see him? Was that how this tornado of blinding red colors was being maintained?

How could such a simple semblance like that be used so creatively?

She decided it would be wise if she didn't dwell any longer inside this death trap, and tried to run outside to escape the bustling red wind that surrounded her.

She felt something hard hit her face when she got near the wall of red, tumbling back into the center of the tornado.

" _Sorry, but you can't get me out of your hair that easily."_

Blake rubbed away the ache on her face, before bringing up her swords again to defend herself against anymore attacks. She glanced around, concentrating closely to see if she could at least hear _something_ , like a signal or cue that could help her tell when he'd strike. Hey eyes might not be quick enough to react to him, but that didn't mean her ears couldn't catch the faintest discrepancy from his movements.

For a moment, it seemed like it was helping. She was able to react fast enough to block a few of his strikes based on the shift and turns of his footsteps. Fat load of good it did for her right after, though, when he caught wind of her tactic and adapted to counteract it.

" _To your left!"_ He echoed as he hit her right side, using his voice to camouflage the noise of his movements. " _I'm behind you!"_ He'd continue, swiping at her foot and knocking her off balance.

 _So much for that plan._ She mentally grunted in frustration.

" _Over here!_ " " _Now I'm there?_ " " _Look out above you!_ "

Again and again, he whittled her down as he relentlessly took potshots at her, disappearing and reappearing in so many directions that it was impossible to predict.

Having enough, she shifted her katana into a pistol again and reloaded her gun, rapidly firing around in hopes of somehow getting a lucky shot and hitting him.

Emptying the last of her magazine, she was dispirited to know that even that desperate move had failed when his voice cut through in an almost taunting manner, " _Mm, no dice._ "

Before she could even blink, she felt her weapons being knocked away from her hands. Dropping to the ground, they slid away from her and were engulfed inside the blazing wind of the red tornado. Her eyes widened in horror as she she realized that she had lost her only means to properly defend herself. "NO!"

" _Just in case you have more bullets though, I'll be taking those away from you for now. You could shoot someone's eye out._ "

Blake would have responded to that rudely, were it not for the fact that Ross had jabbed her in the stomach immediately after. She lurched forward, holding her gut as she went into a coughing fit.

Then she took another blow, across her face.

Then another blow, aimed at her knees.

Then another.

Then another.

Then another.

Until she felt the final blow to her chest, much harder than the rest. It had been so devastating, she was launched back and her head collided straight into a wall.

Bruised and battered across her body, she was sorta amazed that she still had the strength left to lean back against the wall and keep herself standing upright.

 _It's not over yet, I think… I can still keep going…_ She told herself, careful not to put too much pressure on her legs or else she might prove herself wrong by getting weak and falling to her knees.

The blade of a scythe indented itself right next to the side of her neck, scaring the crap out of her. She looked to the scythe, then to the pole it was attached to as it held her throat firmly in place between it and the wall she was up against. Finally, her amber eyes made contact with silver, as the boy in front of her took large and heavy breaths.

Despite being the one who barely took any damage, he somehow looked as bad as she did.

There was something different about him now, though. His silver eyes, they didn't have that sharp cutting edge as they once did before. The flare behind those silver eyes were gone now.

It didn't look as unsettling as before.

"Okay… but seriously though…" He gasped, struggling to get air back into his lungs. "About that… deal I mentioned… the one where… you give up peacefully… wasn't lying about that… still on the table for you… givin' ya a second chance… normal life and all that..." He wheezed painfully with a strained expression, "Ohdeardust, I'msofuckingtired."

Even after all this, he was still willing to trust her with another chance to surrender?

Blake couldn't fully comprehend him. It was hard to believe that someone so skilled could still act so… innocent. Naive. It almost broke her heart, knowing that she was going to have to take advantage of his trust and kindness again in order to turn the tables around.

She had no choice. She had to get back to Adam.

She tried to think of a plan to get herself out of this. What could she do in this position?

Was Gambol Shroud laying around nearby?

Just as that thought came to mind, she looked behind Ross to see the tornado of red rose petals slowly breaking apart, the wind calming down to a mere gentle breeze. With no giant red wall to block her view anymore, she was able to spot a tint of gray metal hidden underneath a pile of red petals a few feet away.

That had to be from her weapon. If only she could get to it though… but how?

"Look, I really don't want to have to fight you again. It's exhausting, and I really don't have the energy for it." Ross managed to regain a bit of stamina to talk normally again, "Plus, I don't want to hurt you anymore. I mean, you're like a really really cute girl, and I can't help but feel guilty every time I put a bruise on you. Call it chivalry or whatever, but someone like you really shouldn't be wearing scars around her body, and I'm trying REALLY hard not to get any on you."

Wait a minute… That sort of reminded her about something he had said earlier...

" _Normally,_ _I'm a bit socially awkward around girls_ _. This is actually one of the first times in my life I'm not being_ _reduced to a stuttering nervous wreck_ _while talking to a girl I've never met before…"_

She… had an idea. Although, she wasn't sure if it was something to be proud of, or if it'd even work. It might even be a bit too exploitive for her…

What other choice did she have though? Might as well be worth a shot.

"So, if you could please not fight back anymore, I'd be really appreciative abo- MMPH?!"

Blake closed her eyes and tilted her head forward in order to reach his lips with hers, kissing him by surprise.

She could feel his entire body freezing up in shock just by the sensation of his lips alone.

"MMPH?! Mmph-mph-mmph?!"

She peeked her eye open a tiny slit to see him with his eyes wide open and his cheeks blushing feverishly. The sight of it honestly looked cute.

More in a 'baby kitten' sense than anything else, really.

Once she released his lips from her grasp, he was, in his own earlier words, reduced to a nervous stuttering wreck.

"I- uh- um- that was- you were- I mean- uh- I-"

She wasted no time and kicked him in the chest, pushing his scythe off of her before running towards her weapon.

He let out a pained moan as he collapsed onto the floor, tightly holding his chest, "Agh, dammit, my rib cage!"

Grabbing Gambol Shroud and shaking the rose petals off of it, she immediately descended upon the young boy, straddling on top of him and putting her blade against his neck. "Don't move." She commanded threateningly.

This was probably the first time since they met each other that she actually saw a hint of fear in him. Although impressively enough, he managed to hide it well behind a calm facade.

She waited for a few moments to gauge his reaction, see if he had another trick up his sleeve or would move to overpower her. But no such move was made.

Satisfied that he probably wouldn't pull anything in the next few minutes, she gave him another command, "Slowly move your hands up to where I can see them. Then turn over to lay on your belly."

He obediently did as she said, moving his hands up next to his face and turning over on his stomach. She didn't even have to tell him to put his hands on his head, because he apparently knew to do it for himself.

Good. The less of a struggle he gave, the easier it'd be for everyone involved.

Lacking anything to tie his hands with, she nervously glanced around to look for something that could fit the description, before realizing that she had a perfectly good elastic black ribbon wrapped around her arm like boxing tape.

Pulling that off, she went to work, roughly grabbing one hand down behind his back to tie a secure knot, and then bringing the other one down to finish.

"Are you going to kill me?"

Blake paused when she heard that question.

He asked it in such an emotionless and dead tone… almost like he was disappointed in her choices.

Looked like all those moments where she took advantage of him were finally making him realize that she was not to be trusted. Especially with that latest action of hers really cementing it further.

She really should have kept silent. She really should have made him stay bitter and angry at her, so that it'd teach him a lesson about not naively thinking everyone he met was a good person at heart, and to just blindly give them the benefit of the doubt. This lesson would have kept him alive for when he ever faced someone who was even worse than her.

But…for some reason, that damn disappointed tone of his really cut deep with her. Something about it that really made her want to try making it up to him somehow, someway.

So she couldn't help but answer back with the honest truth.

"No. I'm not going to kill you. You're just going to stand up, walk with me back to the front car of the train, and you're going to join the rest of the passengers."

She didn't know if she could kill him even if she wanted to. Her heart would just be too weak for it.

"That's it?" He asked curiously.

"That's it." She confirmed, finishing the knot on his makeshift cuffs.

"Hm." Ross hummed, before smiling back at her, "Well, that's better than what I was originally expecting. I guess I was right about you being a good person after all."

"Just be quiet and stay down." She roughly commanded the young boy, before moving away to pick up his scythe. She'd hold onto it just in case.

Crouching down, she prepared herself to lift up the behemoth of a weapon, expecting it to probably weigh a ton or something. Much to her astonishment though, she virtually had no difficulty in picking it up, even with one hand.

In fact, holding it now, it felt almost as light as a feather.

"It barely weighs anything…" she whispered in awe, "How is this even possible?"

"Gravity Dust integration." He helpfully answered her question, "The entire shaft is covered to the brim with the stuff. The only thing that's not enchanted is the blade itself, so it'll still leave an impact when I swing it."

Impressive.

"Hey, if you're thinking about carrying her along, it might be a good idea to press the switch on the side of the rifle trigger to shift her into a compacted case." He suggested.

She looked for the switch he mentioned and pressed it, watching in amazement as it quickly contracted itself down in her hand until it became nothing more but a red case.

 _These Hunters, they're getting more creative by the day, I swear._

Attaching the case to her back, she walked back to Ross and pulled him up by his hoodie. As Ross gained balance on his two legs, Blake continued, "Walk."

And so they walked forward with awkward tension, Ross walking ahead with his hands tied, and Blake standing close behind while keeping a blade near his throat, even if both of them knew she wasn't going to use it on him.

Things were pretty silent, considering. Until Ross decided to open his big fat mouth again. "What you did back there was totally unfair and fucked up. You know that, right?"

"Feh," she scoffed, "That 'Red Rose Tornado' trick you did was unfair."

"..."

"..."

"At least I didn't molest another person's mouth just to get my way." He quipped.

"Shut up!"

* * *

"DEAR SWEET FUCK, WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GUY'S FACE?!"

Ross Rose did not know what to expect when he finally reached the front car of the train. But he could at least list a number of things that he _didn't_ expect.

For example, he did not expect to see the body of a uniformed man to lay across the floor with his entire face looking like it was scrubbed by what would be considered as 'the worst rug burn in existence.'

He did not expect to see so many workers and passengers to be tied up alongside with him in the room, eyes looking like they had been scarred for life.

But most importantly of all, he absolutely _did not_ expect to see the one and only leader of the White Fang, Adam Taurus, to be in his presence.

 _Oh no… if the leader of the White Fang himself is in charge of this… this heist must be a whole lot bigger than we thought._ Ross worriedly thought to himself.

"I'm back." Blake spoke up behind him, greeting the red-haired demon.

"About time you showed up." He chastised her, before turning his attention towards Ross. "Who's this? Friend of the Hunter you dealt with?"

"Actually, this IS the Hunter." She corrected, "He was the one that's been taking down our brothers. It took a lot out of me to finally beat him."

Ross gave a confused frown as he saw literally everyone in the car giving him stares of utter disbelief with some eyebrows raised in skepticism.

 _Why's everyone giving me those looks for? It's not_ _ **that**_ _hard to believe, is it?_

"You're kidding me." Adam deadpanned.

She shook her head, completely serious.

"And you actually had difficulty trying to detain him? This… _child_?"

Blake glanced away, hiding a small embarrassed blush as she explained, "He's a lot more skilled than he looks."

"And I happen to be a fifteen year old teenager, thank you very much!" Ross added indignantly.

Adam looked back at the young boy unimpressively, before looking back at Blake again. "I expected better from you, Blake."

"I'm sorry." Blake muttered, staring at her feet with a downtrodden expression.

He turned around and waved it away without a care, "It doesn't matter. Just put him down with the rest of them. There's one more thing left to do before we leave."

"Adam?" She asked, carefully shoving Ross down next to one of the passengers before following after her partner.

They both entered the engine control room, shutting the door behind them with a loud slam.

Ross took this as his cue to make his move. Quickly checking around to make sure the coast was clear, he scooched up to one of the passengers next to him and whispered, "Psst, hey."

The passenger faced towards him in confusion. She was a pretty young girl, short blonde hair being held with a girly hairband bow that was a pale tint of blue, and attractive crystal blue eyes. Judging by the attendant uniform she wore, she must have been a worker for this train.

"How good are you at untying knots?" He asked.

"Mmph." Her voice muffled against the duct tape covering her mouth.

Ross rolled his eyes, "Nod if you're good with knots, and shake if you aren't."

She shrugged.

"Good enough for me." Ross moved his backside right behind hers and put his tied up hands against her hands. "It might be hard, considering you can't see and your hands are also tied up as well, but try to feel around the ribbons to see if you can somehow unbind me."

"Mm-mmph?" She muffled in a questioning tone.

"See, now that the both of them are away, this might be our only chance to break free. The ribbons I'm tied up with aren't as rough as rope, so it might be easier to untie them without looking if you just focus on your touch and feel around the knots." He explained to her, "If that's not what you were asking about, then… well… fuck, I dunno what else to say. I can't speak duct-tape-nese."

The girl seemed to consider this for a second before nodding resolutely at him, and began to work on his hands.

Ross patiently waited for her to finish, knowing that it might take a while for someone to untie a knot without being able to look.

But after a minute or two of that, it quickly became very boring to sit around and do nothing. So out of morbid humor, he decided to ask, "So, come here often?"

She paused from her work, before turning to glare at the boy, as if to ask " _Seriously dude?_ "

He chuckled a bit, before apologizing, "Sorry, couldn't help it. Please, continue what you were doing."

And so she did.

Deciding to take in the sights while he waited, he looked around the room to study what he could.

The face-fucked corpse wasn't exactly pleasant to look at. His unique uniform out of the rest of the passengers hinted that the guy must have been the conductor for this train. Noticing the giant square hole in the wall, as well as some splatters of blood near the floor of it, Ross could make an educated guess about how this had happened. Adam Taurus sure was one sick bastard.

Ross felt a small pang of regret for not arriving sooner. Maybe he could have done something to prevent this from happening. Now was not the time for regrets though. He looked around the room again.

There were at least two dozen people in this room alongside him, all of them bound and gagged while sitting on the floor. Some of them were staring at him, wondering what he was doing. Some chose to sit back near the walls and corners, mourning with muffled sobs as they thought this to be their final moments in their lives. Some just looked to be in shock, looking ahead at nothing while their eyes glazed over.

Almost all of them looked like they had lost all traces of hope.

 _Now that just simply won't do,_ Ross furrowed his brows, _All this negativity in the air isn't healthy. Looks like it's up to me to give them all the pep talk they need to hear._

"Hey, everyone." He calmly spoke at an even volume.

The ones who were staring at him perked up, while a few of the others glanced his way to see what he had to say.

"I promise you guys. Everything is going to be alright. I'll get all of you out of this mess." He gave a confident smile as he reassured them all. "Although things look bleak, no one else will be dying today. Not when I'm here to make a difference."

That seemed to do the trick. Although not all of them took comfort in his words, at least a few of them nodded back, holding him to his promise.

The overall mood seemed lighter now. It might not be much, but it was enough for now.

"How you holding up with those ribbons?" He asked the girl behind him to check on her progress.

"Mmph-mph-mmph."

"Oh right, duct-tape. Nevermind."

Without warning, the train decided to shake violently, signalling the sharp turn it was taking to the passengers inside. Everyone panicked as they felt themselves being pushed by the force, before finally settling down when it ended.

Ross had firmly grabbed on tightly to the girl's arms, avoiding the chance for her to be separated from his bindings, thus forcing her to start all over again.

"You okay?" He looked back to ask her, loosening his grip on her arms.

The girl nodded to him before putting her concentration back on trying to untie him without having to be asked again.

Ross felt his bindings get noticeably looser. After a quick tug from his new female companion, the ribbon was now untied. Rubbing his wrists, he quickly pocketed the ribbons that Blake 'gave' and told the girl, "Thanks, I owe you one."

"Mmph-mph." The girl nodded back.

The others widened their eyes as they noticed how Ross was up and about, hands now freed of the string that once held him. Looked like that promise he gave wasn't looking so far-fetched now.

But he sternly held a finger up his lips to them, calming their excitement before it got too out of hand. After all, things weren't over yet.

The boy quietly tiptoed over to the door of the engine control room, leaning his head against it to eavesdrop on the two White Fang members. Might be important things they were discussing, you'd never know.

"Jeez, warn me next time before you do something like that." He could hear the familiar voice of Blake behind the door, although it was faint. He strained his ears, trying to hear their conversation more clearly. "So, what did you just do?"

"I rerouted the train to another rail track during the intersection we passed through." He heard Adam answer her. "This train will be taking a small... detour."

"And you found the blueprints for the exosuits will be located there?"

Exosuits? Like, 'cool futuristic looking metal power armor with laser guns and missiles' types of exosuits?

"Obviously not. These tracks lead to an abandoned tunnel under a mountain that was caved in decades ago due to an accident involving Dust. Since the cave-in blocked off the path, they shut this route down and it was basically erased from the map."

 _Wait… a cave-in?_ Ross slowly processed this fact into his head, before coming to a startling realization, _But that means… oh shit, this train is going to crush itself into the side of a mountain wall!_

"A cave-in? Wait, won't that mean-... No way… you're kidding..."

"We have a few minutes left until the train crashes, so the sooner we get off, the better."

"But what about the passengers?!"

"What about them?" The cold tone of his voice made it clear that the question was rhetorical. But it was enough to stun the cat Faunus into silence.

This was bad… this was very very bad. Ross needed to find a way to stop this train before it kills everyone!

"We're wasting time. Let's leave-"

"Wait! Adam, you can't do this to them! These people are just innocents! They don't deserve to-"

Ross heard a thud on the other side of the door, interrupting Blake from finishing her sentence.

"There are no such things as innocents in this world, Blake. All humans are liars just as they are scum. It's in in their nature." The pure hatred in his voice was so thick, Ross could almost feel it from where he stood. "Tell me, do you believe for a single second, that if your life was in danger, one of the prisoners on this train would come out and risk their own life just to save you?! That one of them would look at you and see past your Faunus heritage, something that they inherently believe as alien and beneath them?!"

There was a small whimper…

"ANSWER ME!"

"N-... No…"

"Exactly." Adam lowered his volume, but the hatred was still clear in his tone. "So why should we bother to give them the privilege if they won't do the same to us? Do you understand me Blake?"

Ross didn't hear Blake vocally respond.

"Good." Adam said, apparently satisfied with the unheard answer that Blake gave him.

Hearing footsteps coming his way, Ross hastily moved away from the door and sat back in his old position next to the blonde girl. He held his hands behind his back, pretending that he was still tied up.

Blake was the first to step out, looking much worse for wear. A bit of eyeliner makeup was dripping down her face, as if she had been crying. Ross was alarmed to see that Blake had acquired bruises on her neck, knowing that he definitely didn't attack her anywhere near there during his fight with her.

That feeling quickly evolved into rage, however.

Adam followed soon after, silently walking past everyone and ignoring them all as if they were just furniture in a room.

Ross completely zeroed in his sights on him.

 _Bastard!_

A gust of wind and a trail of rose petals following behind, Ross had snagged Crescent Rose out of Blake's back before shifting her into scythe form and snugly wrapping his scythe's blade around the bull-demon's neck.

Everyone froze still, the tension of the room steadily growing higher by the second.

But Ross didn't pay attention to anyone else. All of his focus was aimed straight towards the White Fang leader.

He didn't even notice the throbbing pain in the back of his head, warning him from overusing his semblance.

"Adam Taurus…" He breathed out heavily, tired from using his semblance again so soon. "I'm arresting you for the crime of commandeering a train of Atlas property, the brutal murder of the train conductor, and the attempted terrorist act of murdering dozens of civilians by forcing the train into a collision. Do not resist arrest, or else."

"Or else… what?" Adam calmly asked, not moving an inch.

"Or else... I beat the shit out of you, that's what!" Ross lamely countered.

 _Damn, I really should have practiced saying the Miranda Rights._ Ross mentally groaned to himself.

That little moment to himself was just enough to delay his reaction from the backhanded slap to his face. He had barely seen it coming. The slap was so powerful, it caused him to fly back and slam right into the door of the engine control room before sliding on his butt.

He grunted from the pain of both the stinging sensation on his face, as well as his entire body aching from the crash. "Augh-freaking, ow…" He rubbed the back of his head to soothe the aching, stopping himself when he felt something wet leaking out. He brought his hand back in to see that it was soaked in his blood.

Adam scoffed at the pathetic sight, "Such stupidity. You barely have enough Aura to sustain your wounds. Did you really think you could take me on while in your state?"

"Did you just fucking pimp slap me across the room?!" Ross ignored Adam's question, feeling that asking his own was of higher priority.

Adam shook his head, before turning around and leaving the front car. "You're not worth the effort. Instead, I'll leave you to die here with the rest of your human trash.

Blake could only look apologetically at Ross as he struggled to get up from his injury. By the look in her eyes, Ross knew that Blake never wanted this to happen to him. To anyone. But still, she moved to follow after her partner.

Adam reached out his arm to stop her as she walked past the passenger doorway. Pointing downwards, he gave her an order, "Cut the connector between us and the front car."

Blake hesitated for a brief moment, but went ahead and pulled out her weapon anyway. As she prepared to cut the piece of metal that held the two train cars together, she hesitated when she heard Ross yell out to her.

"Blake! Wait!"

She looked up.

He groaned, just barely pushing himself to his feet. He breathed heavily against the strain, and he was almost positive that he had suffered a concussion from hitting his head into a wall without his Aura protecting him. But he didn't give up hope for her. Not yet.

"Blake… please…" He pleaded with her the second time that day, leaning an arm against the wall to steady himself, "I know you're not a bad person. You _know_ that what you're doing is wrong… I can see it in your eyes that you don't want to do this just as much as I do."

He paused his thought to puke up some blood, nausea wracking his mind.

 _Yep, definitely got a concussion._

Wiping at his mouth, he went back on topic, "These people don't deserve to be killed. They haven't done anything wrong to earn this. You can still redeem yourself, Blake!" Holding out his non-gross bloody arm, he reached out for her, "Please… help me save them…"

He had hope when he saw the conflicted expression on her face. He had hope when she started to look her weapon with doubt. He had hope when she nearly opened her mouth to say something important to him.

"Blake, cut the connectors. Now."

BUT THEN THIS ASSHOLE CAME ALONG AND RUINED THE WHOLE PARTY. THANKS EL TORO DOUCHENOZZLE.

Ross puked up some more blood. _Damn_ _concussions._

Ross knew that she wanted to reach out for him. He saw it, she was so close to doing it too. But then she closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Goodbye." She quivered.

All of his hopes were dashed away when she severed the connection between her car and his.

"Blake!"

He clumsily ran up to the doorway, watching helplessly as the distance between them grew farther apart, faster than he had expected it to. The train he was on was moving so fast, Blake and Adam were nothing more than a speck of dust by the time he blinked.

He was so close… So close! If it hadn't been for that **damned bastard** scaring her into submission…

Dammit…

Dammit!

"DAMMIT!" He violently punched the doorway out of frustration.

Even now, he still had the afterimage of the two of them burned into his mind before they escaped.

Blake, looking so sad and guilty that she was nearly on the verge of tears.

Adam, giving him the smallest hint of an arrogant smirk.

 _I swear to you Blake… I'll save you from him one day. I'll free you from El Toro Douchenozzle's leash, and get you out of his crazy giant bull circus filled with clowns and seals and-_

Ross puked up more blood.

 _Okay, add hallucinations and possible internal bleeding onto the list of things to see a doctor about. I'm starting to remember things that aren't even correct, and the amount of blood I've been puking is genuinely worrying._

He pulled away from his semi-lucid thoughts to assess the situation and to figure out the best way on how to proceed. It might be a good idea to keep everyone in the loop of what was going on so that they knew what to expect.

"Okay everyone, I need you all to remain calm." He started simply enough. Everyone stared at him with worried eyes, but he continued, "This train has been sped up and rerouted to a decommissioned train track that's leading us towards an abandoned caved-in tunnel on a side of a mountain. So, uh, if worst comes to worst, we might all crash and burn into painful oblivion."

Poor choice of words. Very poor choice of words.

One man started to scream against the duct-tape on his mouth, while another woman started to hyperventilate as she desperately tried to pull off the rope that bound her hands. Pretty soon, everyone started to panic in a frenzy as they all cried out for help and bashed their hands against the floor like it was going to turn into a convenient magical sharp razor.

Ross blinked at the carnage he accidentally started before calmly walking up to his scythe and picking it up.

Then he aimed at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.

 **Bang!**

"EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP."

The people inside the car immediately stopped what they were doing and looked towards him.

He sighed in relief, "Friggin' dust, I _just_ said to remain calm." He rubbed his face to calm his nerves, carelessly smearing some blood puke onto his head, but too tired to notice or really care. "I want all of you to remember what I just promised earlier. No one else is going to die today, not when I'm still here to make a difference." He shifted his tired demeanor into a determined expression, reassuring them all with confidence in his voice, "I _will_ find a way to save you all. Count on it."

Ross didn't bother to look any of them in the eye after that, knowing that just seeing even a single trace of doubt might make him doubt his own words.

But there wasn't enough room for doubt in these circumstances.

Just before he moved to open the door to the engine control room, his belt vibrated to signal an incoming transmission.

"Fuck, I do not need this right now!" Despite that, he still moved a finger up to his ear anyway. "Ross Rose, what do you want?!"

~"Freshman Rose, that is not how you properly speak to your Commanding Officer! I thought we talked about this."~

"I am way too busy with a stressful and terrifying situation at the moment to give a flying fuck about your fancy army lingo! Your intelligence units never said anything about Adam Taurus being on this train!"

The voice of the general paused for a moment on the other end of the transmission.

~"Freshman, repeat that again."~

"Adam Taurus! Adam Taurus, leader of the White Fang, public enemy numero uno, was here! On this train!" Ross punctuated for emphasis.

~"Freshman Rose, I demand you to report to me everything that is going on. Right now."~

"Well gee effin' whiz! Where the hell do I start?!" He snarked, "Adam Taurus led a group of White Fang to commandeer a train because it was carrying some sort of blueprints on freaking Exosuits of all things, but apparently, he wasn't able to find it! So now he kidnapped and tied up literally everyone on the train, killed the train conductor, and has somehow been able to reroute the train to some decommissioned train track. Now I'm stuck on the lead train car with a dozen tied up civilians with me, which is on its way to **crashing** into the side of a mountain!"

~"Freshman, where is Adam Taurus right now? Is he still on the train?"~

"No, he was able to escape by getting on the second train car and detaching it from the leading car by cutting off the connectors."

~"And you didn't think to stop him?!"~

Ross's anger flared up, "The thought has obviously crossed my mind! What, you thought I just idly sat back and relaxed while letting a wanted criminal terrorist off scot free?!"

He heard a frustrated sigh on the other end before hearing the General clear his throat. ~"Freshman, it's imperative that you get off the train right now and quickly catch up with Adam Taurus before he relocates to another area."~

"I can't do that, sir." Ross didn't hesitate to reject his command.

~"Excuse me!?"~ The General had the audacity to sound indignant.

"Were you not paying attention earlier when I said that there was dozens of innocent civilians that are going to die from a train collision if I don't do anything about it?! I need to find a way to stop this train before it-"

~"Freshman,"~ the sharp tone from the voice of the general interrupted Ross from continuing. ~"Do you know how rare it is for the leader of the White Fang to allow himself out in the open? We have been trying to locate his whereabouts for so long, and now that he's finally revealed himself, you're just going to let this opportunity to catch him go to waste?!"~

"Again, as I repeat for the third time today. THERE IS A TRAIN. IT IS FILLED WITH INNOCENT PEOPLE. IT IS ABOUT TO GO BOOM. BOOM IS BAD FOR THEIR HEALTH. Do I need to explain it slower for you?!"

~"Civilian casualties are inevitable in our line of work. In this case, the sacrifice will have to be necessary."~

Ross choked on his tongue when he realized what General Ironwood was trying to say.

 _No… no, you can't… that's not how Hunters work…_

"Sir…" He gulped nervously, his hand trembling slightly against his ear. "You're asking me to abandon these people to their deaths."

~"No Freshman. I'm not asking you anything. I'm _ordering_ you to stop everything you're currently doing, and make catching Adam Taurus your first and _only_ priority."~

Ross hitched his breath, unable to believe what he was hearing. What the General was forcing him to do. It went against everything he believed in as a Hunter. He couldn't come up with a proper response to the General's apathetic disregard for life.

Ironwood took his silence as a request for further explanation. ~"Let me make this perfectly clear to you, Freshman Rose. This could be my one and only chance to finally stomp out the White Fang terrorist group once and for all. There is no telling when an opportunity like this will show up again. If you prove to be an insubordinate to my orders during this mission, I will have no choice but to expel you from Beacon Academy without formal notice."~

Expelled… from Beacon?

But… it was his dream to be…

~"Am I understood, Freshman?"~

Ross didn't respond, his eyes gazing over the rest of the passengers. They knew what was going on. They heard what he said to the general. And in their eyes, they were begging for Ross to not even consider it.

He was their only chance for survival.

Yet Beacon was his only ticket to becoming a licensed Huntsman. If he didn't follow orders, then he'd never be able to join the academy again. All of his work, his studying, his training…it'd all be for nothing…

His dreams wouldn't come true…

He'd never become a Huntsman...

~"Freshman Rose! I need you to vocally confirm that you understood my orders. Do you read me, soldier?"~

 _Soldier…?_

Ross clench his hand into a fist. The frown on his face slowly morphing into a scowl.

 _A real Huntsman would choose to save them without a second thought. A real Huntsman would protect the innocent and protect the peace. If Beacon doesn't teach that value to all of their students anymore… if Beacon means to never question or disobey the orders of others… if Beacon means I'll grow up to continue to be bossed around by Ironwood…_

 _To hell with Beacon._

~"Freshman Rose, do you-"~

Ross tore the communicator off of his ear and threw it down by his feet, shifting his scythe into rifle form and proceeding to fire a round at the offending device.

"Boring conversation anyway." He quipped, feeling a load of stress being released from his shoulders.

 _I am not a soldier, Irondouche. Especially not yours._

He gave a calming sigh before going into the engine control room.

He did his best not to look back at the passengers. Not until this was all over. Not until he knew for a fact that he wouldn't regret his decision when everyone was safe and sound and happy.

* * *

 **An original idea I had a long time ago back when Volume 2 was the latest season of RWBY. Sort of. Thanks for reading. Would appreciate your opinions on this story if you left a review.**


	2. Origins of the Red

_It was the summer season. Mother Nature bloomed everywhere, the beautiful flowers of her work laid amidst the ground, and the trees glowed a healthy shade of green. A hopeful sun lowered in the sky, signifying the near end of the day to start a better tomorrow._

 _There he stood, right in front of the altar near the edge of the cliff. He pulled his hood back, allowing himself to breathe the fresh air, his reddish-dark hair rustling slightly from the wind._

" _Been awhile since I've been here. Sorry for not visiting sooner, I guess." He halfheartedly apologized to the marble stone in front of him._

 _Two names were etched into the slab of concrete, with a symbol of a rose and two halves of a burning heart._

Summer Rose and Taiyang Xiao Long: The Dragon Held Closely the Last Rose of Summer, He Sleeps As She Kindly Scatters.

 _Why did he come here again? What was he trying to accomplish?_

 _This felt like such a waste of time, to be honest. He had better things to do besides coming here, surely?_

…

 _No, no he didn't. This was pretty much the only place he could think of in order to break the monotonous cycle his life had become._

 _Plus, he really needed someone to talk to. For, like, any reason whatsoever. But the list of people he could talk to at the moment was kinda short. His uncle was busy with a mission at the moment, and the next letter from his friends would be arriving in the next three days or so. He couldn't exactly talk to his sister either, for obvious reasons._

 _So, even while both of his parents were kinda… well,_ dead _. They probably still counted as somebody. Probably. They were also the only ones closest to Patch, so, yeah._

" _I guess I should first tell you how I'm doing and what I've been up to lately. Like any normal son to his long deceased parents." He said in an unsure manner._

 _This probably wouldn't accomplish anything at all._

 _But he was bored._

 _So screw it._

" _Well… I've been doing pretty shit lately. I guess." He began elegantly enough. "Got kicked out of Beacon by the new headmaster. Pretty much sucks. Been wandering around for awhile with nothing to do. Couldn't hang out with Uncle Qrow since he's busy with his jobs. Couldn't hang out with friends because they're still in Beacon. Was probably going to go insane within the next week or so." He paused, before finishing, "And that's about it. So, how about you two, anything new happen while you two were dead?"_

 _As expected, he didn't get a single response._

 _Ross sighed heavily. "This is so stupid."_

 _He thought back to the days that brought him up to this point in his life._

* * *

"You reckless, idiotic, arrogant fool! Do you realize what you just cost me?!"

To Ross's credit, he somehow managed to take all of the general's insults with stride. They just kinda felt… meaningless, now that he knew what was coming.

Ross stood in the Headmaster's office, in front of the general's desk, as the man stomped back and forth in aggravation.

"Taurus was right there! We could have easily tracked down his position and caught him right then and there! My life could have been so much easier from that point forward!" He stopped his pacing and glared at the young boy, "Now we've lost him again, all because of you! We could have had him, Rose! Instead, you chose to disobey orders so that you could play out a damn power fantasy by wasting time with a bunch of civvies!"

Ross's eye twitched. Welp, looks like the stride's over.

"A power fantasy?! I just prevented the deaths of dozens of innocent people! What kind of fucked up world are you living in if doing the morally correct thing is something you'd consider a power fantasy?!"

It was sort of a miracle how he managed to save them all, to be honest. A very convenient miracle. Full of conveniences.

He had conveniently found a manual on operating trains while rummaging through the pilot's seat in a desperate attempt to find out how to operate and drive a train.

Unfortunately, the entire manual was printed in German, the language most commonly spoken in the Eastern quadrants of Atlas. Conveniently, Beacon had forcefully shoved enough German words into his brain that he had a pretty rudimentary understanding of the language, allowing him to read the manual, albeit rather brokenly.

To his dismay, the manual used extremely big and complicated words that he couldn't hope to understand. Conveniently, he didn't have to. All he needed was to look for the word "Notbremsen." The emergency brakes.

He was able to activate the emergency brakes using nothing but an old German manual, and his extremely basic knowledge of the German language. He somehow managed to do all this with a somewhat delirious concussion to boot, conveniently enough.

Seeing the mountain coming into view on the horizon, and only getting bigger as the train drove towards it, nearly gave him a damn heart attack. Which probably did not help the state of his injuries and conditions.

But he did it.

He actually did it.

He saved everybody's lives.

He saved the day.

"Do not backtalk me, you worthless excuse for a soldier!" Ironwood bit back, "If I give you an order, you are to respect and follow it!"

Inconveniently enough, his good deeds wouldn't go unpunished.

"Like hell I'm gonna respect an order that involves letting innocent people die, and like hell I'm gonna respect you for trying to force me into following it!"

" **ENOUGH!"**

Ironwood slammed his gloved fist to the center of his desk, breaking it in half.

Ross didn't even blink, unintimidated by the repeated scene. It was heart-stopping the first few times he did it, but now it was just starting to get repetitive.

The general took a moment to steady his breathing and calm himself down. Glynda Goodwitch, who was silently watching by the side, rearranged and fixed the desk with her riding crop without needing to be asked.

After taking a breather, the general resumed his glaring at the boy. "Innocent people are killed everyday by criminals like the White Fang. To stop the killing, you need to stop the killer. Like preventing a weed from growing out by tearing off its roots." He sat back in his seat, "Tell me. Although you may have prevented the deaths of a dozen lives today, what's to prevent Adam Taurus from killing again tomorrow? He may decide to vent his anger and take it out on dozens, if not hundreds of people, by the end of the next day. Did you ever stop to consider the amount of lives you could have potentially saved if you had followed after Adam Taurus like I ordered, versus the unsubstantial fraction of just a few on that train?"

What Ironwood was saying made sense in a way, Ross would admit that. But even so…

"A life is still a life, no matter the amount. I don't think of them as numbers on a piece of paper, ready to be reported in. Each life is just as valuable and equal to the next." He argued, "Who are you to say that their lives were unsubstantial?"

The general grinded against his teeth, "You naive and childish little brat…"

"Aren't you the one that's been name calling me the entire time I've been here?" Ross snarked, much to Ironwood's chagrin. "Who's more childish than who?"

The man stood up from his chair and violently slammed both of his hands down on his desk, _again_ , with his gloved one causing the desk to crack a little. Glynda wordlessly fixed it with her riding crop.

"I have had it with your insubordination and disrespectful attitude, Rose. You are a reckless daredevil who would prove to be an absolute menace to society if you were ever given the license of a Huntsman. You are a worthless fighter with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and I am shocked and appalled that the previous Headmaster had actually vouched for you, and allowed you to attend this school! You are clearly too brash and too disruptive to handle a profession as serious as this, and thus, I am glad to say that you are hereby EXPELLED from Beacon, which in turn means you are expelled from every other Hunter academy in Vale, indefinitely!"

...

"I don't care." Ross replied, surprising both the general, and Goodwitch as she silently watched on. "I didn't join Beacon so that I could become a soldier and get forced into the military. I joined to become a Huntsman, someone who was bound by no one, and whose sworn duty was to protect the innocent and uphold the peace. Obviously, the meaning of the title has changed ever since Atlas muddled its grubby hands into the academy."

He wouldn't go down quietly. He'd be defiant till the very end, since nothing mattered anymore. His life was practically over now, so he'd be a complete bitch about it if he wanted to.

"Your scroll and weapon, Rose." Ironwood practically snarled at him.

Ross glared back, taking his grand ol' sweet time walking up to the desk and handing in both his scroll and his scythe. Maybe if he did this slowly enough, the general might pop a blood vessel or two. "Headmaster Ozpin knew what it meant to be a true Hunter. You should have never replaced him."

Ironwood crushed the scroll handed to him with complete ease in his gloved hand. Then he tore apart and completely obliterated Crescent Rose into pieces.

Despite himself, Ross had actually flinched when he saw that. He had poured sweat and tears into creating his darling baby to perfection, relying on her for these many past years. To see it getting destroyed so mercilessly like that, it made him feel like he lost a part of his own soul.

 _Rest in peace, my wonderful baby girl. You'll always be remembered inside my heart…_

"Ozpin's methods of teaching were found useless and unacceptable by the Atlas Board of Education. They only saw it fit to do the necessary actions." Ironwood said, allowing the red metal pieces of Crescent Rose to scatter on the floor. Glynda stiffly levitated the mess away.

"That's because Ozpin was actually teaching morals and compassion to all of his students. Of course, Atlas would find something like that worthless, with them hellbent on brainwashing everyone into a mindless soldier that isn't allowed to think for themselves."

"You are _done_ here, Rose." With one last hateful and final glare directed his way, to which Ross responded in kind, he turned to his Deputy, "Ms. Goodwitch. Please escort Ross Rose back to his dorm and allow him to pack up his things. Then, escort him off the premises as soon as possible."

"As you wish, Headmaster." Professor Goodwitch emotionlessly replied, calmly walking right next to the young boy. "Come along, Mr. Rose."

Ross hocked a loogie on the office floor and skillfully moonwalked towards the elevator, his hands giving the double middle fingers to the general while maintaining complete eye contact the entire time. Ironwood gave no outward reaction other than the annoyed furrowing of his eyebrows.

Goodwitch pointedly did _not_ use her telekinesis to clean up his spit. Yay!

When they got in the elevator, Professor Goodwitch was quick to press a button on the panel, allowing the doors to close and leave Ironwood out of his sights.

Ross gave a relieved sigh, feeling the stress starting to take a toll on him.

"Honestly, are you purposefully trying to make your situation as bad as possible?" The professor exasperated, massaging her temples to ease her nerves. This was one of the many times she had shown Ross her true genuine emotions, instead of hiding it behind a bored and neutral persona like she usually did in front of the general. "The least you could do was restrain yourself a bit. You nearly made him blow up his new desk to smithereens! And I just replaced it from the _last_ time you were here!"

"Totally worth it." Was his cheeky response.

"Of course it was…" She groaned.

There was a pause of silence after that, before the professor turned to Ross with a regretful expression. "In any case, I am sorry that this had to happen to you. What you did was both noble and courageous, and such an action shouldn't have been punished so severely. Were it in my power, I would have done everything I could to allow you to stay in the academy."

Ross scoffed. "And what? Listen to Irondouche yap on about being the model student and never being able to do anything without somehow pissing him off for the next four years? I appreciate it, Professor, but I probably would have jumped off a cliff within the next two weeks anyway."

"Touché." She nodded in agreement, not bothering to hide an uncharacteristic smirk.

This was another drastic thing that changed ever since the revision process that Atlas imposed on Beacon. Glynda Goodwitch's personality.

He remembered back in his first month in Beacon when Ozpin was still the Headmaster, the dear professor looked like she was nearly about ready to skewer him on the spot when she had caught him engaging in a small fight in the lunchroom with the team leader of CRDL.

In his defense, Cardin was being a douche and bullying a friend of his, Velvet Scarlatina. Like hell Ross would ever let something like that slide.

It was mind-boggling how different she was back then compared to how she acted now. Maybe now that the academy had become more strict and uptight itself, she just felt it would only be right to be kind and compassionate in order to balance it out. It was like she took a small piece of the old Beacon inside of her and wanted to preserve it for as long as possible.

Ross certainly couldn't complain. She became much more easier to talk to as a result, and he was able to find a friend in her that he wouldn't have ever expected to find five months ago.

Speaking of friends…

"I just realized…" He gave a worried look to Goodwitch, "If I'm expelled from Beacon, then what's going to happen to my team?"

She sighed regretfully, unsure if her next words would be comforting ones for the young boy to hear. "Well, with lack of a leader and teammate, your team will have to decide amongst themselves who would have to take your role as the new leader. After that, they will be put in a queue to get a transfer student from one of the other Hunter Academies to fill in the gap needed for the four-unit ensemble. Then, the team name will be rearranged in order to fit in the new team member."

"I see…so I'm gonna be replaced, huh?" He looked away tonelessly.

It wasn't like he didn't expect this. But still, the thought of it was kinda depressing. Ross couldn't help but feel a bit jealous, scared, and maybe even angry.

Jealous, because the new guy replacing him might be even better than him in every way possible. Scared, because his team might easily accept this new change and probably forget that he had ever existed. Angry, because he just couldn't handle the possibility that General Irondouche might decide to personally pick out Ross's replacement himself, and end up choosing some snooty fancy rich jackass that would probably kiss the general's ass all the time and worship the ground he walked on.

" _Yes Mister Supreme Leader General Master Ironwood Sir, I will most certainly arrest this orphan boy right away for his disgusting crime of accidentally scruffing your godlike perfect boots! TEN YEARS DUNGEON, NO TRIAL."_

But he shook his head from the thought, knowing that his fears were obviously unfounded.

The new transfer student might just be a down to earth guy, or a positive hard worker. Ross didn't even meet them yet and already he was judging them for simply taking his place on his team. He really should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, the bonds he shared with his teammates were way too strong for something as simple as a replacement to get in the way of their friendship. None of them would even dare dream of forgetting him. They were just too close for that.

"I'm sorry, Ross." Glynda softly patted his shoulder.

Ross smiled lightly at the gesture, "No problem. I'll be fine. I'm just worried how my team will feel about this. This might be the last time they get see me, after all."

"I'm sure you'll work things out with them."

* * *

Before he knew it, they were already at the door of his dorm room.

Ross nervously shifted around in place, before asking his teacher, "Hey Professor Goodwitch? I think I'd rather be alone with my team for a moment. Just to finish my goodbyes."

She nodded back understandingly, "As you wish, Mr. Rose. I'll go ahead and use this time to prepare a bullhead for your departure." She turned and walked away, only to take a brief pause to tell him: "And despite what the Headmaster said, please, take as long as you need. The bullheads might be preoccupied for the next few hours, so there's no rush."

She gave him a knowing look before she left.

Ross looked back at the door to his dormitory room, not at all prepared to break the news and say goodbye to his friends. But if it wasn't now, then it'd be never. And Ross couldn't do something like that to them.

He took a deep breath, and went to pull out his scroll to open his dorm room.

…

Only to find that his scroll was nowhere to be found on his body.

"Wait, where the hell did I leave my- oh right." He deadpanned.

A flashback of the general crushing his scroll in one hand with complete ease came to mind.

Welp, Ross wasn't above knocking on doors like the primitive man of yesteryear. So he knocked three times, and then waited.

Apparently he didn't have to wait that long, since within milliseconds, the door had basically been torn off its hinges by the familiar resident crazy ginger lady.

"ROSS! YOU'RE BACK!" Nora Valkyrie squealed excitedly.

Ross smiled as he greeted her, "Hey Nora- OOF"

Ross wasn't able to get another word out before he was suddenly tackle-hugged by his dear hyperactive and overbearing teammate.

"Ohmygawd, Iwassoworriedaboutyou! Eversinceyoumouthedoffthenewmeanieheadmasterandhadtogoaloneonthatmission, IwasntabletosleepforweeksbecauseIalwayskeptmyselfupworryingthatsomwthingwentwrong, butnowyou'rebackandeverythingisokayandyou'llnevereverleaveuseveragain!" Nora violently hugged the ever living shit out of her team leader.

" _G-GAHK-ARK-IT'S ONLY BEEN LITERALLY A DAY SINCE I LEFT_ " Ross wheezed as he slowly choked to death.

"Do you know how slow time passes when you're not here?! IT IS UNBEARABLE TORTURE!" She said melodramatically, still not loosening her death vice of a grip from the poor boy.

Right before Ross could contemplate walking towards the comforting light to see his parents again, his saviours came just in the nick of time to pry Nora off, allowing him to breathe in the wonderful miracle of life that was oxygen.

"Nora, what did we talk about when it came to bear-hugs?" The Eastern boy reprimanded, holding his friend back by her shoulders just in case she decided to go for second rounds.

"Only do it for special occasions!" She enthusiastically answered.

Lie Ren shook his head and sighed, "No, but close enough." Being the one that spent the most time with her out of all of them, he had already been accustomed to dealing with Nora's antics.

The last member of the team, as well as Ross's partner, stepped up to the boy that was writhing on the floor and held his hand to him. "Great to have you back, buddy. You alright?" Jaune Arc asked with a chuckle.

Ross gratefully accepted the gesture, using Jaune's hand to pick himself up. He took deep breaths before answering nonchalantly, "Yeah, no, I'm fine. Was only moments away from having to eat from a tube for the rest of my life, but otherwise, just peachy." He gave a thumbs up, giving one last cough to regain his composure.

"Sor-ry~!" Nora sang apologetically, but still sounded cheery all the same.

This was his team. Team RNJR, pronounced Ranger, consisted of Ross Rose, Nora Valkyrie, Jaune Arc, and Lie Ren.

With how close they were together, It was almost hard to believe that they only met five months ago, during initiation.

So much had happened since then...

"It is relieving to see you come back from your journey, though." Ren smiled softly at his leader, "How fares the impromptu mission the Headmaster tasked you with?"

Being reminded of his mission yesterday, Ross had to look away with a sad frown.

Jaune took notice of Ross's expression, although he wasn't the only one. Out of concern, he asked, "What's wrong? Did something happen while on the mission?"

How was he going to go about this?

This wasn't something that he could lightly joke about, he couldn't just casually put it out there and laugh it off without sounding like an insensitive prick. But he definitely wasn't strong willed enough to tell it bluntly to their faces. Even he had better tact than that.

Maybe it would be best to go about this as gently as possible.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed. Then he looked towards his team with a warm expression. "You all wanna go grab something to eat in the kitchen? There's something important that I have to tell you guys, and I'd prefer if I could tell it to you on a full stomach."

"Ooh! Ren can make us some pancakes!" Nora half-suggested/half-demanded when she looked over to her friend with huge puppy dog eyes.

Ren subtly rolled his eyes, but nodded anyway. "Sure."

"Don't worry, I'll help out to speed things up." Jaune offered as he sympathetically patted Ren's back.

Even if they tried not to show it, Ross could tell that they all knew something was wrong.

Ross could only hope they'd be ready for it.

* * *

"...then I got expelled." Ross finished recounting.

Nora, midway through eating another bite from her pancake, stopped dead as she stared at Ross with alarmed eyes. The fork fell out of her hand and clattered against the floor.

"W-what?" She quivered.

They were not ready for this.

"Then I got expelled..." He repeated again in a grim tone.

Jaune shook his head in denial, "You…you can't be serious, right? Please tell me that you're not being serious!"

Even Ren, the more stoic out of all of them, looked truly shocked from the story.

Ross somberly picked at his uneaten pancake, suddenly finding it hard to look his team in the eye. So he glanced around the room, taking in the sight as if it was going to be his last time here. So many memories hidden underneath these walls.

The floor still had that scorch mark from his last failed attempt at baking for his team. It was going to be a reward for all their hard work, but then he accidentally set the entire floor on fire. Jaune had ended up doing all the baking and cooking as a result, but they all still appreciated the sentiment. Even if they kinda did have to clean up after his mess.

So many fond memories.

"B-but you saved those people! He can't expel you for that!" Jaune argued in defense.

"No, but he _is_ expelling me for disobeying orders and insubordination." Ross clarified.

"Surely this can be negotiated?" Ren closed his eyes in deep concentration, his expression showing obvious frustration that was unlike him, "This expulsion isn't permanent, is it? There has to be something we can do."

Ross disappointedly shook his head, "He said that my expulsion was indefinite. He's not going to change his mind anytime soon."

 _Especially not since I literally spat on his floor and moonwalked out of the place while flipping him the double bird._ He idly thought to himself.

"That doesn't mean we can't try!" Jaune shouted. Ross could make out how his voice had cracked for a moment, a clear sign for how serious and in distress he was. "We can't just sit by and let this happen! You're our friend and our leader! If this was me, Ren, or Nora getting expelled, you would be stubbornly fighting tooth and nail just to get us to stay! So we gotta do something to help you! Maybe we could talk to another teacher, or contact someone important or- or-"

"This isn't fair..."

Jaune paused from the quiet and timid voice that interrupted him.

Ross worriedly looked over to Nora as he noticed her shivering in her seat, her tears silently flowing down her cheeks. She sat there, crying quietly as she clenched her fingers into her chair.

"This isn't fair..." She said again, just as timid as before.

The young leader reached his hand over to the girl to try to comfort her. "I know it's not, Nora..."

Before Ross could react though, Nora had already jumped at his side and wrapped her arms around his neck. Unlike before however, Nora wasn't strangling the life out of him. She held him soft enough to provide a sense of comfort, yet stern enough to prevent her from letting go.

"This isn't fair! This isn't fair this isn't fair this isn't fair-"

On and on she sobbed, the hoodie he was wearing getting wet as she kept on crying against his shoulder. Ross could only hug her in return, rubbing her back and holding her head to calm her down. What else could he do?

"I don't want you to leave! We were all supposed to be together for the next four years! This isn't fair!"

"I know Nora… I know." He whispered soothingly in her ear. He blinked away the glaze in his eyes, letting teardrops fall as the emotional turmoil that was dormant within him for the past day and a half had finally caught up with him. "I'm going to miss you guys so much…" He croaked.

As the other two watched on, Jaune couldn't help but sniffle, his eyes steadily getting misty. "Dammit, this is actually happening, isn't it? And we can't do anything to stop it, can we?" He whimpered, rubbing his eyes to stop himself from weeping as well.

Ren couldn't handle watching the sight of all of his dearest friends crying, so he fiercely clenched his eyes shut as he looked away, doing his best to prevent some droplets from leaking out.

Nora continued to hold on tighter to her friend as she wailed loudly into his shoulder. "Y-You have a plan, right?! You always have a plan for anything! Just tell us what to do, and we'll do it! Please, I-I don't know what we should do..."

Ross didn't know either, sadly.

There was no backup plan for this. This wasn't something that he could have foreseen happening. He couldn't just pull something out of his ass like all the other times. None of this was supposed to even happen. His life wasn't supposed to be this complicated.

He just wanted to grow up, graduate from Beacon, get a license, and become the hero that he always dreamed of being.

He wasn't supposed to be given the choice between losing his dream job or letting dozens of innocent people die.

Ozpin wasn't supposed to be replaced.

Beacon wasn't supposed to turn into a military school.

Atlas wasn't supposed to take over Vale's kingdom.

His life shouldn't have been so complicated.

So why was it? What changed? What caused any of this to happen? What did he do to deserve this?

Could he have even made a difference?

In the end, it probably didn't matter. The outcome was already decided for him. What else could he do?

"I want you to..." Ross began, his voice trembling slightly.

Nora held her breath to stop crying so that she could hear her leader's orders. He didn't see it, but he knew that Nora had the slightest amount of hope in her expression. Hope for the possibility that he could somehow pull another elaborate plan out of nowhere that would make everything better again. Hope that he could somehow make all of their problems go away.

"I want you all to be here with me…be here until I have to leave."

What else could he do?

When you had nothing left, hope might be the only thing that could drive you forward. But sometimes, it could only drive you for so long before you crashed and burned into a pit of despair.

With her hopes dashed away, Nora burst into another crying fit.

* * *

As per Ross's last wish, team RNJR spent their entire free day hanging out together once Nora got herself under control.

They traveled all over the academy, reminiscing all the days that had passed by.

The rooftops, where Ross had taught everything he knew to Jaune to help him survive Beacon. When Jaune had admitted to faking his transcripts, Ross didn't really seem to care. If anything, their friendship became much closer because of his honesty, and Ross was happy to help out however he could to get Jaune nearly as good as his fake transcripts made him out to be.

The cafeteria, the place where they had dominated the entire lunch period when it succumbed to the legendary event that Ross had named the: 'Holy Shit, I Can't Believe We Just Had A Foodfight War and Beat the Shit Out of Everyone Else.' A placeholder name more than anything, really. The room had contained two hundred and fourteen students during that day. There were two hundred and ten casualties at the end of it.

The campus, where Ross and Nora performed their acts of mischiefs and childish shenanigans upon the unsuspecting student populace. With Ross as the ringleader and Nora as the accomplice, the campus grounds were never a safe place to loiter around. Sadly, their opportunities to perform their pranks had dwindled after the revision process that Beacon underwent.

The gardens, where Ren taught Ross about martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. After realizing one day that there might come a time when Ross wouldn't always have his weapon with him, he asked Ren to help teach him about ways to properly defend himself without the need of a weapon. He would soon later regret doing this, as he discovered that Ren could be an extreme hardass of a teacher when he wanted to be. Still, he managed to pick up a thing or two from the experience.

The dorm lounge. Where they usually spent their free time. Surprisingly, no one else ever used the place, so they normally had the lounge for themselves. It was like their own second dorm room at this point.

Knowing that this might be the last time he ever got to walk in these areas again, it really brought a sense of perspective for him. All these good and happy memories were popping up in his head, just from looking at the tiny little things that he once took for granted.

Despite what it became after the revision process, his time in Beacon was one of the happiest moments in his life.

He was really going to miss this place.

"So what'll happen to us, when you leave? Team RNJR?" Jaune had asked as they were walking down one of the hallways of the academy.

Ross remembered what Glynda had told him, and repeated what she said earlier: "'Without a fourth member or leader assigned on the team, the remaining members would have to decide between themselves who the next leader should be.'" They all gave an uneasy look when he explained that part. "After that, you'll be put in some queue where teams can get transfer students from different academies to fill out any unoccupied positions, and the team name would have to change to fit in the new guy. Basically, when I'm gone, you'll be getting a new team member to replace me."

"Don't say that!" Nora chastised, "Even if you aren't on the team anymore and our name will get changed, we'll always be Team RNJR in our hearts! We would never let some jerk replace you!"

"Thanks, Nora." He chuckled, but shook his head, "Still, I think we need to talk about this."

Ross stopped in his tracks and turned around to face his former teammates, shifting himself into his leader persona. "I want you all to remember one very important thing once I'm gone."

Instantly, they all stood up straighter and listened to him with their fullest attention.

 _It'll be hard to find loyal friends like you guys out there. Diamonds in the rough, the lot of you._ Ross proudly thought to himself.

"Don't put the blame on the new transfer student. It's not their fault that I was expelled, so please don't take your frustrations out on them, okay? The transfer student might be a pretty nice guy or gal, and I don't want them to feel alienated by feeling guilty for replacing me. Sure, if they turn out to be a rude, inconsiderate douchebag, then by all means, knock them down a peg and teach them a lesson." He pummeled his palm for emphasis, before pointing seriously at them, "But absolutely do NOT hate them simply for not being me. A teammate is like family, you're going to have to trust and treat them like they're part of that family, or else the whole team will just end up as a dysfunctional mess. Got it guys?"

Ren nodded, "Positive."

Nora gave an exaggerated salute, "Promise!"

"Pfft, like you even needed to tell us that." Jaune playfully waved away.

Ross smirked as he felt a small wave of relief wash over him. "Guess I didn't." Honestly, he knew they weren't that kind of people. They would never stoop so low as to hate someone they didn't even know, simply because of something out of that person's control.

Whoever was replacing him was going to be really lucky to have them as a team, and as their friends. Hopefully, they would realize this and appreciate it too.

If only he had more time to properly show his appreciation for them himself.

You could never have enough time to spend with the people you knew and love. Ross learned that at an age far too young for him.

* * *

That day had passed by quickly. Much too quickly for him, ironically enough.

He was able to spend his last day in Beacon the way he wanted to. Together with his friends. But even then, he wished that the day could have lasted just a little bit longer.

Unfortunately, it had been time to go.

They had helped him pack up his things, although it was rather halfheartedly, Ross included. After that, they helped Ross carry his stuff to the Bullheads, where Glynda Goodwitch was waiting.

Slinging his backpack over his shoulder as the Bullhead crewmen carried his bags onto the vehicle, he looked back at his teammates once more. "Today has been fun. Thanks for being there for me."

Jaune rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, before walking up to his former leader. "So… I guess this is goodbye then…"

Ross silently nodded with a crestfallen expression.

Nora stepped up too, holding her hands tightly together behind her, "Be sure to write, okay? Also, let us know when you get a new Scroll so that we can call each other! Even if you're not here, it'll be great to hear from you every now and again."

"And we'll be sure to update you about our performances in Beacon in return." Ren continued for her.

Nora huffed at her childhood friend, "Jeez Ren, you make it sound so boring! Like all we're doing is trading statistical information or something!"

He quirked an eyebrow, "Is that not we're doing on a fundamental level?"

"It's more intimate than that! Sending a heartfelt letter to a close friend does not mean drawing a timetable and recording what we're doing each and every minute! Like who does that?!"

"Alright guys, I get the point," Ross chuckled, waving away the argument, "Don't worry, I'll be sure to let you guys know how I'm doing."

"You better!" Nora harrumphed, but gleefully kicked her leg back as she hugged Ross in one last goodbye.

Letting her go, Ren walked up to give Ross a respectful arm-hug, "Stay safe, friend."

"You too, man."

Last but not least, Jaune. The two brothers who had stuck together ever since the first day of Beacon, endured many hardships together, and somehow remained sane throughout it all, shared a manly of manliest fist bump.

"You're gonna be there for our graduation ceremony." Jaune declared.

"Obviously." Ross rolled his eyes as he smirked.

Finished with his warm goodbyes, Ross stepped back to admire the sight of his three friends one more time, before hesitantly boarding the Bullhead.

As he sat down across from Glynda, he threw his backpack to the side and sagged himself to press his head against the window, watching his former team smile at him from the outside. He was surprised to still find strength in himself to keep up his own smile, despite how depressing this moment was for him.

"Where would you like to be dropped off, Mr. Rose?" Glynda asked, finger hovering over her scroll tablet to prepare for a location.

"Patch. Anywhere on the island is fine."

"As you wish."

As the Bullhead ascended into the air, the remnants of team RNJR waved and shouted their final goodbyes through the windows. They never stopped until he was far far away, and only then did Nora start crying over the loss of a friend.

* * *

That was weeks ago.

Life had been pretty generic since then.

Sure, it was nice to be reunited with Uncle Qrow again. After all, it had been months since they'd last seen each other. When he found out the reason for why Ross was expelled, he definitely had a few…choice words to say about General James Ironwood. But then Qrow congratulated Ross, saying that it took a truly selfless and noble soul to do what he did, and that he was proud that Ross didn't cave in to the general's orders despite what it meant for him.

"You're a good kid, kiddo. Your mom and dad would've been proud." He had told Ross, patting him on the shoulder.

Mentioning his parents really didn't give as much comfort as Qrow hoped to give. Ross apparently still had some issues getting over them, even after all these years.

After that though, nothing much really happened. He'd just been kinda lazing around in his uncle's house. Nothing to do anymore.

Ross couldn't attend Signal Academy again, even if he really wanted to. So that was kind of a bust.

Qrow, despite how he was Ross's only guardian figure left, was usually not around the house to take care of him, what with the teacher occupation in Signal and his duties as a Huntsman and all that jazz. With his time mostly eaten up by work and more work, Ross was usually alone at the house most of the time.

Couldn't go out to relieve some stress by killing Grimm, since his darling baby Crescent Rose had been demolished by the robo-hands of the General himself. There was also no creative spark to really inspire him to make a new weapon for himself either, so he couldn't really make another weapon no matter how hard he tried. Crescent Rose was pretty much his Magnum Opus. And now she was gone.

Video games felt like a repetitive chore now that he'd literally played and beaten all of them at least hundreds of times now. There was nothing good to watch on the holo-tv besides some reruns of his favorite shows, and even that started to get boring eventually.

The only interesting things that happened to break the monotony of his simple life was when he would occasionally write a letter to his friends and former team in Beacon, and when most of the time he would get some letters replied back. He couldn't afford to get a new Scroll just yet, so communication was solely by snail mail.

 ** _Dear Ross,_**

 ** _Hey buddy! Hope you're doing alright. Ren, Nora, and I have been keeping it together since you left and we're doing fine for the most part. Nora still hasn't gotten over your expulsion yet, since she sometimes randomly bursts into tears during the day. She's been doing it less often now, so I think she's gotten better. Although she still sometimes gets teary whenever she sees the color red or a piece of cookie._ _LOL._**

The word LOL appeared to be furiously crossed out in order to hide it.

 ** _Sorry, force of habit since I usually text a lot. I haven't actually written a letter since grade school, heheh._**

 ** _We eventually decided to name me as the new team leader. I have absolutely no idea why Nora and Ren thought it was a good idea to put me in charge, but it looks like I got no choice in the matter, since it was the majority vote between the three of us. Let's all pray I don't screw this up._**

They decided to elect Jaune as the new team leader? Made sense. Since he had been Ross's partner and learned everything he knew from Ross in the few months they spent together, it was the only logical choice. Ross was confident that Jaune would be a good substitute for him. Despite how weak and inexperienced he seemed at first, Jaune was actually a pretty smart guy once he got his head in the game. Maybe even smarter than Ross, who knows?

 ** _Oh, also, today was the day we got assigned our new transfer student. Her name is Pyrrha Nikos, and apparently she's a top ranking huntress-in-training from Mistral. They say that she won the Mistral Regional Tournament for four consecutive years. I don't know much about tournaments overseas, but I'm gonna take a gamble and say that means she's pretty good at fighting. Was she even meant to be assigned to be on our team? She seems a bit too good to be stuck with us first years. Oh well, we're getting along pretty good with her, although it's been awkward at first. She's very polite! Maybe a bit too well-mannered though, but hey, beats having someone similar to Cardin. Oh god, can you imagine? Nora would have committed murder on the first day if we ever got someone like Cardin!_**

 ** _Anyway, I'm pretty confident we'll all warm up to each other soon. She's smart, nice, and it doesn't hurt that she's pretty hot too, if I say so myself. If it wasn't for the fact that she's way beyond my league, I'd have revved up the ol' Jaune Arc Charm on her._**

Ross rolled his eyes. Oh Jaune, ever the charismatic gentlemen.

 ** _OH, if you don't know what she looks like, her face was once on every box of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes Cereal! If you can't find one, I'll try to send a picture of her in the next letter!_**

Ross took a quick glance at the cereal box he held, showing the face of last month's mascot. "The Invincible Girl," eh? Monty have mercy on this poor lass for the next three and a half years.

 ** _With her in the team now, our new team name was rearranged to be the brand new Team JNPR, pronounced Juniper. (No, not the planet. Don't worry, I made that mistake too.) It's not as snazzy as RNJR, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of color a Juniper is, (Ren told me it was some hue of greenish?) but the name just kind of works._**

 ** _I wish you were there to meet her. You would have liked her. Both of you could have gotten along great._**

 ** _Welp, that's all I have to write for now. Let us know what's up over at your end, okay? Nora will be the next one to write to you, so be prepared for that mess._**

 ** _Write back soon,_**

 ** _Jaune Arc_**

They seemed to be fine. They got a good teammate who didn't suck to replace him. That was good.

Ross was happy for them. They wouldn't have a troublemaker like him to hold them back from their full potential anymore.

…

Ross roughly slammed his head back on the couch, rubbing his eyes to stop any evidence of tears from leaking.

 _This is fine. I'm perfectly fine. Nothing is wrong._

* * *

And that was how he ended up here, near the cliff at his parents grave.

Why did he come here again? What was he trying to accomplish?

This felt like such a waste of time, to be honest. He had better things to do besides coming here, surely?

…

No, no he didn't. This was pretty much the only place he could think of in order to break the monotonous cycle his life had become.

Plus, he really needed someone to talk to right now. For, like, any reason whatsoever. But the list of people he could talk to at the moment was kinda short.

Uncle, overworked.

Sister, missing.

Friends, too far away to visit.

Parents, dead.

Why did he come here again?

If he came here to talk, who would he talk to? There was nobody here. No matter how many times he came to visit, nothing was ever here for him.

Just a giant slab of concrete that replaced the spot where his parents usually stood.

Dreams of being a Huntsman were crushed. Hopes of a lifelong future of adventure and romance were dashed. Everyone he knew and loved was too far away to reach.

He felt… alone.

…

…

…

"Excuse me young man!"

Ross was startled out of his angsty angst when he heard a familiar voice call out from behind him. Turning around, he was extremely surprised to see someone that he never thought he would see again in his life.

"I don't suppose you have a cup of tea on you right now?" The man smiled cheekily.

His clothes were battered and ripped, skin blotched with dirt, his hair even messier than it normally was. But Ross could tell that man from a mile away.

"Headmaster Ozpin?"

"Please Ross, I've retired from that now." The man pushed up his cracked glasses to the bridge of his nose, looking no less elegant than usual. "You may just call me Ozpin."

* * *

My name is Red. My real name is a secret that only those closest to me know. This is a tale of my hardships to free the Kingdom of Vale from the control of the Atlas Military, to calm the beasts with White Fangs that keep terrorizing my home, all while keeping the real Grimm monsters at bay.

With me alone, it's gonna be hard to do all of this simultaneously. But if I'm smart, I'll make a few friends to join my side.

Look out for us in the future. We'll be making headlines soon.


	3. Chocolate's Prologue

**AN: I suck at consistent updates. Also I'm in college. Fight me.**

* * *

"All I'm saying is that we should just tone down the shopping sprees, Coco. You go overboard every weekend! The rest of the team just can't keep up!"

Velvet Scarlatina chuckled warmly as she pressed her Scroll against her lower ears, walking down the aisle of a store. It was just a simple grocery errand for her in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

Positioning her Scroll on top of her shoulder, she began going over her notepad to check what else she needed to buy.

"No offense, but I _really_ don't care that the clothes I bought just a week ago were now considered outdated. Not all of us are made of money, you know." She rolled her eyes at Coco's response, before replying, "Look, if it means that much to you, I'll personally give you permission to buy my clothes from here on out, okay? Just... don't overdo it and buy something skimpy like you usually tell me to get."

The faunus looked around the store to find her giant teammate's favorite brand of cereal, dismissively scoffing at a flattering comment from her team leader, "It doesn't matter if I have the legs for it! Quit being creepy, Coco."

Checking the cereal box for the expiration date and deciding it was satisfactory, she added it to her basket and moved on to the checkout aisle.

Waiting in line behind an older woman, she continued the conversation with her partner, "Of the three years we've spent together with Yatsuhashi, have you ever actually seen him wear anything else other than that one set of robes? Besides the Beacon uniforms, I mean? I also doubt Fox will care too much either, you know, considering that he's blind. Hazarding a guess that fashion is not included in his list of priorities."

Velvet quirked an eyebrow after her partner gave a loud sigh over the call. Rolling her eyes once more, the rabbit girl playfully snarked back with, "Yes, I'm sure life would be so much easier for you if all of us were just tiny little fashion poodles that could fit inside of your purse."

"Hmhmhmhm."

Velvet blinked when she heard a chuckle from the man behind her. She glanced at him for a second out of curiosity, before turning around to face forward in line- only to double take at what she saw.

He was a rather interesting sight: there was nothing about him that really stood out, if you were to completely ignore the obviously home-made mask he was wearing. A plain white plastic mask with no eyeholes, and the only discernible feature being an oversized question mark cheaply taped on top of it for decoration.

Other than the mask though, everything else he was wearing was perfectly normal. A red leather hooded longcoat with matching pants and black gloves, presumably to keep him warm for the coming fall season. He didn't have anything else on him other than a jar of cookies under his arm. It was seriously just the mask that caught her attention.

Noticing that she was staring at him in confusion, he awkwardly waved at her, "Uh, sorry. Didn't mean to eavesdrop, I just thought what you said was kinda funny."

"R-right…" She politely nodded back.

Velvet faced forward, doing her best not to turn around and make eye contact with the strange man again.

Quietly, she whispered a passing question into her Scroll, hoping the man doesn't hear her. "Um… say, Coco? I'm no fashion expert- that's usually your field of expertise- but uh… Is it a trendy fashion statement these days to go around wearing a full-on face mask with a question mark symbol in public?" There was an awkward silence before she replied again. "No reason. Just kinda saw something weird today in a store."

Shaking her head, Velvet did her best to move on from the topic and tried to forget about the man in the mask behind her, figuring it was just the quirk of a foreigner or something.

Returning back to her original conversation, she sighed, "Look Coco, I know how cramped up you've been feeling ever since Beacon started becoming more strict with uniform code since the Atlas Annexation. Lots of people are having trouble adjusting, even after a year's passed. God knows it's been harder for me to even walk in a public area without being judged for having a pair of rabbit ears…" She shook her head and continued, "Point is, there's just nothing we can do about it. We just gotta get used to the changes, you know? That's life. We can try anything we can to get a grip of comfort, but fact of the matter is, Atlas is here to stay whether we like it or not."

After hearing her friend give a resigned sigh in agreement, Velvet then asked, "So will you go on less shopping sprees now?" she winced at the negative response she got and groaned playfully, "Should have figured."

With the end of that conversation, she said her farewells, "Alright, I'll see you back at the dorm. Ciao."

Velvet hung up her Scroll and walked to the checkout counter as the older woman in front of her finished up. Unloading the shopping cart, she waited patiently for the fox Faunus cashier to scan her items.

Her ears twitched when the masked man behind her began to speak. "I think that's kinda sad."

Velvet turned to face the man. She quirked a curious eyebrow, although she didn't reply to his comment.

"I meant that it's sad to hear you think there's nothing people can do against the Atlas government." The man further explained, "Seeing you just… sit back and accept what's happening, saying that it's nothing worth fussing over about… isn't that just giving up? You really don't think that someday, someone might be able to rise up somehow and fix everything that Atlas made wrong?"

"That's a nice thought, but it's mostly just wishful thinking." Velvet shrugged, "Don't get me wrong, sir. I'm not looking down on you for believing that something like that could happen. But realistically though, what are the odds of that even happening? Who would even be strong enough to go against a powerhouse like Atlas?"

The masked man casually shrugged, "Whoever wants to. Anyone could accomplish it if they set their fears aside and did what was right. Maybe it might be me who could stop Atlas." He pointed at himself, before pointing at her, "Maybe it might be you, if you ever changed your mind. Maybe it might even be the cashier."

At mention of her, the fox girl snorted, "Hah! You're a funny guy, Red. Like I could start a revolution with my minimum wage job of putting eggs and milk inside bags."

"I'm just saying. Anything is possible, even if the odds are against you. All it takes is one person to make a difference. That's what I believe, anyway."

Velvet couldn't help but give a small smile at the man's words. Rarely did you ever meet someone with such an idealistic perspective these days. It was sort of refreshing, actually. He reminded her of a friend she once knew from a while back.

She didn't really know how to respond to that, other than a half-hearted, "Well sir, if you ever manage to convince Atlas to give Vale back its independence, I'll be cheering for you by the sidelines. So good luck with that."

"If I could, I'd have you by my side." The masked man told her. "Despite how you act about it, I'd like to think you wouldn't stand idly by when the time comes to stop someone from getting hurt or abused. You're much too selfless for that."

Velvet raised an eyebrow at the comment, "Nice of you to say… but I'm pretty sure it's too soon for you to judge, considering we just met. Don't you think?"

"Okay, that'll be seventy-two Liens and fifty Fiats. Would you like to sign up for special deals and coupons, miss?" The cashier girl interrupted them.

Having nearly forgotten her items, she faced the cashier with a flustered, "Oh right, um, no thanks." She then handed over the required amount and grabbed her bags, before moving up to leave.

Before she left however, she looked back to the masked man as he placed his jar of cookies near the scanner, along with his lien. The cashier girl wordlessly swiped the item and passed it to him.

As the masked man came up to Velvet by the doors, she gave him a polite smile, "Well, I guess it was nice to meet you, Mr. Mysterious Masked Guy. Or Red- whatever your name is."

He nodded back and briskly exited the shop, "Stay safe, Velvet."

Her ears perked up in surprise, not expecting the man to have known her name.

"Wait, when did you-?" But before she could follow after him and ask how he knew, he suddenly vanished by the time she was on the other side of the door.

She blinked once, then twice, looking around to see any sign of the man. Then she shook her head and rubbed her eyes in confusion, "Well. That was… freaky."

It was definitely not an average day of grocery shopping, that was for sure.

Looking around once more, she tried her best to see where the man had disappeared to. He couldn't have ran off too far, could he? She followed after him right when he left the shop. Did he just POOF away like some hallucination?

Surely, she wasn't crazy enough to hallucinate all that. Right?

No, he was definitely real. She's not crazy yet.

Still no sign of the man, she mumbled to herself, "What was that all about?" Velvet sighed in fatigue, and then began recounting all the items in her shopping bag. "Carrots, cereal, Da-da-dah… everything's accounted for. Time to head back home."

And so the rabbit girl made her merry way back to her academy dorm, writing off her strange encounter with the mysterious masked red hooded man as a one-off event that will never repeat itself.

Still… she kept a watchful eye around her. Just in case he popped up again.

But probably not though.

Maybe.

* * *

* _YAAAAAAWWWN*_

Velvet stretched out her arms and gave a relieved moan as she felt the satisfying snap of her cramped bones.

Still waiting in the checkout line behind a teenager as he got his item scanned, she decided to pull out her Scroll and send a text message or two.

An entire week had passed by without much excitement going on. Nothing new or interesting happened so far, and her schoolwork had been as boring and repetitive as ever. Marching this, training that, studying here, mission assignments there- The usual works.

Besides that one encounter with the masked man from a week ago, everything was completely dull.

Remembering the man, Velvet curiously looked around, in the off-chance that he might show up again. She _was_ in the same shop as the last time she met him, after all.

But no, it didn't look like he was here this time around.

Velvet frowned with disappointment, but she couldn't really place why she would feel disappointed in the first place. It wasn't like she was looking forward to seeing the mysterious masked guy again.

Maybe she just wanted to ask how he knew her name, when she clearly remembered having not introduced herself yet.

Maybe she was just bored and wanted to see him again because his mysterious nature piqued her interest.

Maybe she wanted to know what he meant when he said that a single person could fight back Atlas if they wanted to, and how they could possibly make a difference if they tried.

Okay, so maybe she _was_ sort of hoping to see him again. It didn't seem to matter though, as it was obvious that the masked man wasn't even here.

She gave a resigned sigh, unsure on what to do.

"Excuse me, Miss? You can put your stuff on the counter now."

Snapped out of her thoughts, Velvet looked ahead to see the cashier girl from last week watching her with an expectant look.

"Oh! Sorry!" She fumbled forward, before straightening herself up and laying her items on the counter.

Velvet stood there and awkwardly waited as the fox Faunus scanned and bagged her stuff with a slightly amused expression.

"So, I noticed you seemed to be distracted." The cashier casually pointed out.

"Yeah, sorry. Got a lot on my mind today." Velvet chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Doesn't happen to be about Red, does it?"

Velvet furrowed her eyebrows and asked, "You mean the masked man? How did you know I was thinking about him?"

"Guessed." The cashier shrugged, bagging a carton of milk before continuing, "Also, you've been craning your head around like an owl ever since you came in. So that kinda tipped me off."

"Oh." Velvet blinked, before dragging a hand down her face. "Didn't realize I was being so obvious."

"Heh, no worries. I totally get it though." Swiping a carton of eggs, the cashier asked, "That was the first time you met Red, wasn't it? Yeah, he has a weird way of catching your attention with first impressions alone."

"Well, he does kinda stand out with the whole mask thing." Velvet hummed, "Is that his real name? Red?"

"As far as I can tell." The cashier shrugged, "That's what he prefers to call himself, so I wouldn't know. You sure you don't know him? He seems to know who you are."

"Yeah, that's something I've been trying to figure out. How often does he come by here?"

"I can tell you for sure that he's not a regular. He drops by every now and then. Mostly through a span of a few days to a few months" The cashier stroked her chin in thought, "Although he has started popping up more often lately."

Hearing that, Velvet leaned over the counter and got right up into the cashier's personal bubble, "Did he happen to come by since the last week we met?"

"Whoa, ease up girl." The cashier gently pushed Velvet away from her personal space, before resuming her job. "Sorry Miss, but he hasn't shown up since the last time you were here."

"Figures…" Velvet sighed with a bored expression.

"Geez, someone sure is interested despite only knowing each other for like, what, five minutes?" The cashier laughed, bagging the last item. "He leave that big of an impression on you?"

"I don't know." Velvet hummed as she grabbed her bags. "Maybe it's because I've been bored lately and just wanted to find an excuse to do something to distract myself. But it's like… There's something weird about him that pricks the back of my head, and I just can't stop thinking about him until I figure out what it is." She shook her head slightly and gave a sheepish smile. "Is that weird?"

"Nah, you're just the curious type."The cashier continued, "If I wasn't practically forced to take this dead end job, I'd probably go for it and try to follow the guy around just for funsies."

Velvet looked away in thought for a moment, before giving a considerate hum. "Maybe if I ever get the free time."

"Okay, that'll be eighty-five Liens and seventy-two Fiats. Would you like to sign up for special deals and coupons, miss?" The cashier asked.

Velvet raised an eyebrow at the question, but answered, "No, but thanks for reminding me about it. I guess."

As the rabbit Faunus carried her bags and walked out the store, the fox girl waved at her and shouted, "Hey, good luck on finding that guy! Hope you go on crazy adventures like they do in those action movies!"

Velvet wordlessly waved back, leaving the store and headed back to her dormitory room.

As she walked outside, she gave one more thorough peek around the vicinity, just in case you-know-who happened to pass by again,

So far, nothing.

With another sigh, she went on her merry way home from groceries to prepare for more menial tasks again, probably destined to repeat this vicious cycle for another couple years to come.

* * *

"Get back here, you filthy animal!"

The racoon-tailed boy breathed heavily as he tightened his clutch onto his stolen sandwich, desperate to get as far away as possible from his pursuer.

Hoping to distract the man chasing him, he quickly tipped a nearby trash-can behind him as he ran by.

To his dismay, the grown adult effortlessly kicked the obstacle out of the way and continued his chase.

"Stop! Thief!"

Despite the man's screams for him to stop, it had the opposite effect on the child however, as it was just more incentive to run even faster.

He couldn't give up now, after all. It had been weeks since he was able to eat such a delectable meal like the footlong sandwich in his arms. At this point, he'd rather die than to dig out from a garbage bin for expired leftovers and scraps again.

So he ran.

* * *

"Oh damn it! I forgot to get the coffee mix!" Velvet slapped her forehead in frustration, as she turned around to walk back to the shop.

With a huff, she began mumbling to herself, "I lose my thoughts and go off daydreaming for just five minutes! Five min- and I've already forgotten to get the one thing that's essential to my partner's obsession." Tugging one of her bunny ears and wrapping it in a circle around her head, she grumbled, "That Red guy is more trouble than he's worth… I swear, I can be such an idiot sometimes! I can already hear Coco chewing me out-"

With one arm holding her grocery bag, she sternly positioned the other arm on her hip, as she mimicked her teammate's voice and mannerisms, " _Our team name is literally the word 'coffee' Velvet! How do you even forget to buy coffee when it's on top of the list of our essential survival?! Out of all the weeks to forget, you did it on the week when we're going to need it the most?!"_ Dropping her act, she scoffed, "It's the same every week."

As Velvet rounded a corner, she was interrupted from her thoughts when she felt something collide with her feet, knocking her off balance and causing her to drop her groceries.

"OOF!" Velvet groaned, rubbing a sore spot on her face where she landed. Trying to get back up, she grabbed something soft.

Looking down at her hand, she realized it was a sandwich that she had grabbed. She blinked for a moment, confusion settling in as she didn't remember ever buying a sandwich during her shopping session today. Now she could only wonder how she managed to get her hands on one in the first place.

"Uh…"

"Give that back!"

She was slightly startled when the sandwich was yanked out of her hand so suddenly by a small boy in ragged and dirty clothes.

He was young, looked about twelve years old. Maybe younger. He gave her a look of fear while holding on so dearly to the sandwich, like it was his only lifeline. Looking a bit closer at his face, she noticed the small raccoon ears protruding out of his head. A Faunus, like her.

Based on the bruise on his face, Velvet guessed she must have bumped into him while she wasn't paying attention. How clumsy can you get?

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to bump into you!" Velvet calmly and politely apologized to him, hoping that she wasn't scaring him.

Clearly, it didn't appear to work as the boy was slowly backing away from her. It was like he was expecting her to attack him for making any wrong sudden movements.

Surely, she wasn't that scary, was she? I mean, she might not be the prettiest girl she ever knew, but her looks weren't bad enough to even scare off a kid, right? I mean, Coco always told her that she was cute...

Ugh, getting too overly sensitive about that.

Getting back on track, Velvet gave a small nod to the boy and began to pick up her bags, which miraculously didn't manage to spill anything at all.

Standing up, she recounted her items and gave a quick sigh of relief. Then she faced the boy and said, "Well, gotta get going. Sorry again!"

With that, the boy took that as his cue to run away from her as quickly as his tiny feet could take him.

Velvet blinked at the scene, feeling a sense of disappointment and wondered if she could have handled the scenario better somehow.

Shrugging in defeat, she turned around to make her way back to the shop. Before she was able to take another step however, she was suddenly pushed aside to feel her face crash into the concrete sidewalk for the second time today.

"OW! Goddammit!" Rubbing her sore face again, she was dismayed to look up and see that the contents of her grocery bags had actually spilled all over the floor this time.

"Seriously? This is just not my day…" she sighed.

"THIEF! STOOOP!"

Velvet's ears perked up as she heard the shout from the man who rudely pushed her down. Looking over at the sprinting man, she realized that he was running in the exact same direction that the sandwich kid was going.

Putting two and two together, she mumbled to herself with annoyance, "Oh bloody hell."

Glancing back and forth between her groceries that were strewn across the ground and the screaming man chasing the sandwich kid, she rolled her eyes before standing up to give chase. Something told her that a mess was about to start, and she was going to find herself wrapped around it.

* * *

A rock.

That was all it took to stop the boy in his tracks and let the man catch up to him. A tiny insignificant rock that made him stump his pinky toe and cause him to trip over.

All that effort to stealing his sandwich, all that running and heart-pumping fear, it all ended up for nothing because of a rock that he didn't notice until it was too late.

What was the old saying? _Karma is a cruel mistress?_ No, he was pretty sure he got that mixed with something else.

The boy felt the back of his ragged shirt being pulled, lifting him up to the air. The next thing he knew, he felt the entire back of his body being smashed against the brick wall before sliding to the ground.

"You disgusting little street rat!" The man screamed in his face, the boy's nostrils overwhelmed by the stench of alcohol.

He saw the man's grubby hands reach out to grab him again, so he instinctively curled into a ball and protectively wrapped himself around his scuffed up sandwich.

"I've worked every single day to earn an honest living! Pouring blood, sweat, tears, all to pay my taxes and to keep a roof over my head. Every single meal I've ever gotten, I earned with my own money! But you think that _you_ can just take what you want and get away with it?!"

The man struggled to force the boy to unwrap himself, the little racoon Faunus holding on tightly as if it was his very life on the line.

Enraged, the man gave no mercy and decided to kick the boy over.

The boy did not falter, and kept hold of his grip even as he tumbled away and slammed against the wall again.

"All you Faunus are exactly alike! You leech from honest and hardworking people, taking their livelihood and resources because you can't be bothered to actually earn anything yourself! You're all just ANIMALS!"

Before he could unleash his rampage on the poor boy, the man found himself weightless as he felt his feet suddenly lifted from the ground.

"What?!"

He moved his legs and arms around, struggling to drop himself back on the ground. No matter how hard he tried, it seemed that whatever was holding him up was much stronger than him.

"Don't even think about it." A girl's voice told him from behind.

He turned his head around, eyes wide as he saw a girl with brown rabbit ears effortlessly holding him up by the back of his shirt.

She gave a stern glare at him, before roughly flinging the grown man behind her.

The man grunted as he landed away from the two Faunus. He groaned, rubbing his injured sides, before scuttling backwards out of fear from the newcomer.

The Faunus boy took a peek from his position, surprised to see the same rabbit Faunus that he bumped into earlier has shown up out of nowhere to save him.

The girl kept up her menacing glare as she calmly walked up to the man who was fearing for his life.

He reached out a hand, as if to keep her away. "W-wait! I-I didn't mean it! I w-wasn't gonna do anything serious to him, r-really!"

The girl stopped, giving the man a once over in thought. Then she rolled her eyes at the pathetic sight and took out her purse.

She fished out two plastic cards and threw them at the man's feet, much to his confusion.

"That's forty Lien. Enough to pay for the sandwich and for any trouble he caused, alright? So just take the money, leave the kid alone, and go back to your sandwich shop or wherever you work at."

Both the boy and the man looked at her with surprise, not expecting this turn of events.

The man stood up steadily enough, before cautiously inching forward to try and reach out for her money, clearly expecting a dirty underhanded trick from the Faunus.

When he saw that the girl wasn't about to try anything suspicious, in fact looking quite impatient at his meek manner, he decided to fuck it, scooping up the dough and running outta there like an alcoholic in a family home counseling session.

The young boy sat up from his fetal position, gently rubbing the sore parts of his sides before staring at stranger warily.

Taking a deep breath, the bunny girl let out a huge sigh before turning around and giving the young boy a comforting smile that she really hoped wouldn't scare him away like the last time.

Judging by his expression though, seems like she wasn't doing the job very well.

She walked over to the boy and lowered herself to her knees to reach his level. "Are you alright, kid? You injured or anything? Hurt anywhere at all?"

He pushed himself away from the girl, still holding on tightly to his sandwich.

The girl winced at his reaction, putting her hands up in a placating manner. "Hey, whoa, it's alright kid. I'm not gonna hurt you or take your sandwich or anything like that."

The raccoon Faunus kept his wary eyes on her, not sure what to do for his next move. Would she chase after him if he tried to run?

Setting her hands down, she smiled patiently. "Don't be scared. I won't do anything. The sandwich is all yours now, I promise."

Still keeping his eyes on her, he decided to give the girl the benefit of doubt and bring his sandwich in front of him. Not even letting her out of his sight once, he slowly took the first bite of his ill gotten goods.

The girl watched him carefully as he began eating, his pace gradually quickening from steady bites to almost inhaling the entire thing like a starved racoon. Which he technically probably was.

 _Man, it's like the poor kid hasn't eaten anything in forever._ Velvet frowned at the pitiful sight.

With how fast the kid was eating, it took only a couple moments before he started coughing from a stray piece going down the wrong hole.

The rabbit Faunus raised her eyes in alarm, crouching near him to pat him on the back, "Easy now, slow down. At this rate, it's all going to get stuck in between your throat before it can-"

She barely even touched him before the kid looked up and scurried away out of fear, protectively holding his morsel behind him. Tears welling in his eyes as he tried his best to not cough, only to end up making his coughing fit even worse.

"Okay, okay!" Velvet backed away as she held her hands up again, "I'm not going to touch you! Calm down!"

The boy was able to calm his coughing fit to a reasonable state before going back to stuffing the rest of his sandwich into his face.

Velvet watched on timidly, her rabbit ears lowered to the back of her head. For the rest of the time, she stood still and silent, not wanting to scare the kid anymore than she already has. He's probably been through enough as it is.

Finally, the boy swallowed the last of his food, his breath heavy from eating so quickly. Then he looked back to the girl that saved him.

Her eyes glinted up and she tried to give a smile again, hoping that she might be able to talk to him. "Are you okay?"

Without responding, the kid stood up and ran away from her as fast as he could.

Velvet could only blink stupidly, being left behind in the middle of a random alley in the streets.

With a sigh, she stood up from her spot and rubbed her forehead in annoyance. _After all that and not a word of thanks? Typical._

Although feeling slightly dejected, she calmed down quickly. She wouldn't take it personally. He was just a kid after all, a starving one that didn't know any better. Velvet couldn't blame him for acting the way he did, especially in such a harsh environment like Vale.

If only, maybe, things were back to the way they were used to. Back before the Atlas Annexation. Would that kid still be here on the streets, stealing food from shopkeepers in order to survive? Or was that just wishful thinking on her part?

God, she wished things would change back to the way it was before. But it seemed like such an impossible dream nowadays, didn't it?

She was reminded of the words of the red masked man from last week.

" _Anything is possible, even if the odds are against you. All it takes is one person to make a difference. That's what I believe, anyway."_

Would it really be that easy though?

…

Velvet shook her head, dismissing the thought before beginning to leave.

She took out her Scroll to check the time, wondering if she still had long enough to go back and get new groceries before she needed to get back to the dorm.

Hm, she might be able to make it if she ran.

Nodding to herself, she pocketed away the Scroll and exited the alleyway-

" _ **Alert! Hands in the air!"**_

Velvet froze in place as a group of Atlas Military robots surrounded her. "W-What?"

Everywhere in front of her, dozens of military robots stood and aimed their assault rifles directly at her. In a cold robotic voice, one of them shouted, _**"Faunus, hands in the air now! If you do not comply, we will respond with force!"**_

Eyes widened in fear, Velvet had no choice but to follow the order. She slowly raised her hands up, hoping not to attract anymore ire.

Two of the robots walked up to her before roughly pushing her around and cuffing her hands behind her. With each of them grabbing one arm, one of them read her rights, _**"Do not cause trouble. Come with us peacefully."**_

"What's going on?! What am I under arrest for?!" Velvet asked in panic, as she was being lead by the two robots.

" _ **The Vale Police Department has received report of a White Fang member matching your description, assaulting a shop vendor. You are under arrest for assault, and under suspicion of aligning with known terrorist group White Fang."**_

Assault? White Fang member?! "No wait, please! I'm a Huntress-in-training studying at Beacon Academy! My name is Velvet Scarlatina! Check my Scroll for my ID!"

As Velvet reached the back of a police van, the two robots roughly pushed her inside, causing her to grunt at the impact.

" _ **Your innocence will be determined by investigators. Please comply with authorities until further notice."**_

Before she could even respond, the door of the van closed on her before the van drove away. She could only watch helplessly from inside as she was carried to the police station, unable to reach her Scroll to call or inform anyone about what happened.

No good deed goes unpunished, it seemed.


End file.
